Some Sapulpa students spending Spring Break in China

Going anywhere for Spring break this year? Ten students and two teachers from Sapupla are going to China.<br/><br/>As you can imagine, it's gonna be expensive, but as News on 6 reporter Rick Wells

Wednesday, February 15th 2006, 10:24 am

By: News On 6

Going anywhere for Spring break this year? Ten students and two teachers from Sapupla are going to China.

As you can imagine, it's gonna be expensive, but as News on 6 reporter Rick Wells explains, the students are hoping combining sledge hammers and hamburgers will help get them there.

Constructive sledge hammering, last Saturday at the Happy Burger in Sapulpa. It's a fund raiser for the China Club. Daniel Nelsen: "We are trying to raise some money for our exchange trip to China this year." Daniel Nelsen and 9 other students are going. It'll cost each of them a couple of thousand dollars and any money raised will help defray some of that cost.

So folks like Tim O'Hair paid for the opportunity to take a few swings. Afterward he went inside got a burger and something to drink, all that money went to the China Club too. Tim O'Hair: "Always glad to help kids do something like that." In fact, Happy Burger donated all of Saturday's business to the China Club. Betty Gibbs: "These are flowers, they're all yellow when they bloom." Teachers Betty Gibbs and Charlie Dugan have accompanied students to China before, she's going back this year. "We are flying into Bejing, spend a couple of days there seeing the Great Wall, the Ming tombs, the major sites."

They'll spend most of their time with Chinese students in their classrooms and at home. Charlie Dugan: "My son still exchanges e-mails with the Chinese kid he stayed with." The teachers said some of the students on past trips have been so impressed they're now majoring in International Studies in college.

A grant from the Freeman Foundation helps pay for these trips but most of the expenses are paid for by the students who go. So that explains some of the enthusiastic sledge hammering.

The group will leave for China on March 12th and return April 2nd. They have one more fund raiser, a China Club/faculty basketball game scheduled for March 2nd.