A 90-second video made by Vicky Mitchell and Connie Bergman, teachers at St. Francis Solanus School in Quincy, with help from Father Tom Shaughnessy, OFM, won $2,500 in a contest sponsored by Big Lots. The manager at the Big Lots store in Quincy presented them with a prize check, which went into the St. Francis New Desk Fund.

QUINCY - It is not that people at St. Francis of Solanus School don't like antiques. But considering some grandparents of St. Francis students remember sitting in the very same school desks when they went to school there, the desks have become a safety hazard.

Thanks to the ingenuity and creativity of several St. Francis teachers, and a hardy response from parents and other school supporters, a St. Francis New Desk Fund got a jump start.

At the end of the last school year, St. Francis principal Lee Hoffman asked fifth-grade teacher Vicky Mitchell to put together a 90-second video about the desk problem to enter in a contest sponsored by Big Lots.

Mitchell enlisted seventh-grade teacher Connie Bergman to help write the script and act in the video, and the two recruited Father Tom Shaughnessy, OFM, parochial vicar at St. Francis, to help.

The video they made shows clips of the old desks, a scene with a St. Francis grandparent sitting at one of the desks and finally Father Tom giving the oldest desks the "last rites."

Mitchell used Windows Music Maker to put the video together and sent it in. The public voted on the 167 finalists, with each household only permitted to vote once each day the contest ran.

"Our parents and parishioners made a wonderful effort to vote for our video daily," says Mitchell. On July 23 they were notified their video was one of the winners. "We were thrilled to be among the 25 prize winners," says Mitchell.

On Aug. 2, which happened to be Teacher Appreciation Day, Bergman, Mitchell and Father Tom were at the Big Lots store in Quincy where they were presented a check for $2,500. "We ended up being on both our local news channels for our accomplishment. We were thrilled to be able to add that to our desk fund," says Mitchell. New desks for all the students at St. Francis are estimated to cost $30,000 - $40,000.

A four-minute video Mitchell and Bergman teamed up to make earlier in the spring for a Fundraising.com contest was chosen runner up in another contest. That prize of $1,400 in cookie dough was sold at a reduced price, earning $750. "That started the St. Francis New Desk Fund," Mitchell said.