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     On Friday afternoon at 3:04 p.m., with only a minute left in the school day, students raised $706.40.

     It was called the Miracle Minute. Runners with buckets ran into the audience and collected the spare change people had in their backpacks. When the minute was over, students went home not knowing the difference their spare change had made for their Sparrow, Mya Muckey.

     The end-of-the-day assembly was called to introduce students to this year’s Sparrow, Mya. She is a 9-year-old girl with some serious medical conditions. She was born with spina bifida and suffers from epilepsy. Sparrow Club has adopted her this year to help with her medical expenses.

     At the assembly, students were able to hear from Laura Queen, Portland program director for Sparrow Clubs USA. She introduced Mya and her mission to help people choose kindness.

     After the assembly as students filed out of the gym and the Sparrow Club members gathered around Mya to present their letters and take pictures, Mya explained her feelings about receiving the cards.

     “It makes me really happy [to receive cards], and it makes me really joyful,” Mya said. “I love to see everyone’s different writing approaches, it just makes me really happy.”

     Mya had a goal of receiving 1,000 cards and has now received well over that amount. She has hung up many on her bedroom door so when she goes into her room she can see how many people are there for her.

     “We wanted it to mean something, and I feel like it kind of faded away in the past couple of years,” Sparrow Club Co-President Catherine Frisiras said. “We really took it upon ourselves to bring it back because it is such an important club and it really does impact so many more people than just one.”

     Frisiras and Co-President, Chloe Skinner, have put in a lot of time and energy to creating more awareness for Mya.

     Black Rock Coffee Bar and an anonymous family foundation are the two sponsors for Tigard’s Sparrow. They donate $10 for every hour of service that students do.

     “For Black Rock coffee Bar it’s an alignment of compassion, connection and community,” Cory Burket from Black Rock corporate headquarters said. “were all about relationships, were all about stories and we recognize that everybody has a story and when people come through black rock coffee bar we don’t know where they’re at in their story  but we know that for that brief interaction that we get to make an impression in their life.”