VERGENNES — The Vergennes Union High School student Peace One Day Committee and the Northlands Job Corps Student Government Association are jointly donating $2,000 to hurricane-stricken schools in Puerto Rico.
The VUHS Peace One Day committee stages the school’s annual Sept. 21 celebration of the United Nations International Day of Peace. At the event, held this year on the school’s baseball field, the committee engages in fundraising activities with a $1,000 goal, one that it successfully achieved that day.
Representatives of the Northlands Student Government Association also attended the celebration that morning and announced they were matching the VUHS donation with money they were raising on their Macdonough Drive campus.
The two committees met at Northlands on Nov. 16 for a lunch catered by Northlands culinary arts students and also attended by VUHS Principal Stephanie Taylor and then Northlands Director Shirma Ferguson. There, students agreed to donate the funds to the Saint John’s School Hurricane Relief Fund, an option researched by the VUHS students. 
Northlands business community liaison Logan Barbosa wrote in Northlands quarterly newsletter that the charity would use the entire donation toward rebuilding two Puerto Rican schools, and none toward administrative costs.
VUHS faculty advisor Lee Shorey said the two schools that will be fixed were damaged by Hurricane Maria.
“The motto we thought of for these funds raised by our two schools in Vergennes during the Sept. 21st Day of Peace is ‘Two Schools helping Two Schools,’” Shorey said.