Seventh-grade literature students from Washington Middle School recently organized car lanes, along with hoses, buckets and soap in a car-washing, fund-raising effort to help other young people who are hearing impaired.

“During our recent unit on nonfiction we read ‘The Miracle Worker,’ the story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan,” Gina Figler, a seventh-grade teacher, stated in a news release. “We decided to do something to help others, and that is how this student-learning project came to be.”

Steve Helderle’s seventh-grade literature classes also took part in the initiative.

“Our literature classes are using today’s donations to provide young students at Central Institute for the Deaf with reading books,” Helderle stated in the release. “These students are learning to read and use cochlear implants to do so.”

Earlier this month, those same students gathered beneath the flag out in front of Washington Middle School and recited the Pledge of Allegiance using sign language.