Jeans for teens

— Two fifth-grade girls have taken on a mission to raise money for the Playground Project for Pea Ridge Intermediate School.

“My mom went looking for jeans and saw the DoSomething.

org sign at Aeropostle,” Celine Frank, 11, said, “and I went to the website, put our school’s address in there and began working on it.”

Frank said she got her mother’s and principal’s permission and asked her friend Samantha Bott,10, to help.

“We made posters and put them up around the school,” Frank said.

“We walked around our neighborhoods knocking on doors asking for jeans,” Bott said.

The girls said that if they collect the most jeans of all schools competing, they could win $10,000. If they collect the most of any of the elementary schools, they’ll win $5,000.

The girls have almost 100 pairs of jeans now.

“Any size will work. They have to be wearable,” Frank said.

“That shows a high aspiration to lead,” school superintendent Rick Neal said of Frank’s initiative. “That is excellent for our district.

I’m very proud to have that child in our school.”

News, Pages 1 on 01/30/2013