SUMMERDALE, Ala. — As Lisa Mason puts it, the special needs class at Summerdale Elementary School got “slaughtered” what with recent budget cuts in connection with Baldwin County education. They lost a teacher and there was no money for such activities as field trips for the six children that make up the class.

Mason, who lives in Elberta, teaches a night course in Foley for Fortis College. She and her 30 or so students in medical assistance decided to do something about the situation.

They raised $356 through a yard sale and fish fry, enough to send the kids to the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo in Gulf Shores and to an outing at the bowling alley. According to Mason, the money also took care of the cost of transportation and food for the Summerdale students. Local businesses and individuals joined with the Fortis students in donating the food items for the fish fry, which included 500 pounds of fresh mullet.

“The night class is like a huge family,” Mason said. “We're a close-knit group and they loved helping out.”

Indeed, Mason said she urges her students to get involved in the community.

Students who make up Mason's class are from this area and the Eastern Shore by and large.

The Fortis students presented the money to Susan Wilson, a Fortis student, whose son, Zachary, is in the special needs class at Summerdale Elementary.

Mason, who said she is a “dog trainer during the day and a people trainer at night,” has been teaching for five years and was a 2002 graduate of Fortis College.

The project on behalf of the Summerdale school-children isn't the only one Mason and her students have undertaken. They adopt “angel kids” at Christmas time and do fundraising for animal shelters as well.

Fortis was known as Capps College until 1996. Mason said the students she teaches range in age from 17 to 59 or 60. Students enrolled in the 13 month classes learn to do the things that nurses do in a medical environment.