Fifth grade students in Dickinson Avenue Elementary School’s leadership club have regularly given up their recess to count envelopes of change for Stony Brook Children’s Hospital’s Change for Children campaign.

Over the course of two weeks, the “DAS Ambassadors of Leadership” visited classrooms to ask students, teachers and staff for monetary donations for the hospital’s child life services program, which looks to make children’s stay in the hospital more comfortable. The students collected nearly $500, which will help the hospital provide children with toys, arts and crafts, books and other fun activities, like visits from therapy dogs and clowns.
In past months, the club’s 22 ambassadors collected Halloween costumes for Helping Hand Rescue Mission in Huntington Station and coats for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island.