To pick up where we left off. A year and a half ago, my friends, Dominque Soguel, Veronica Ferreri, and I held a Fast & Furious fundraising online event to raise money to get school supplies to an Afar village in the Danakil Depression of Ethiopia where we visited in the Spring of 2010.
We raised close to $2000 USD and our partners and friends on the ground there, Christos and Liza Andreou helped organized the purchasing of the supplies and the distribution with the first portion of the money. We wanted to find the right school and organization in Ethiopia to bestow the remaining amount.
A few months ago, Liza connected me to Peggy and Patrick Josset who have been volunteering with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), an NGO working in Ethiopia. They work in some of the most impoverished areas in the world and expressed a need for school supplies for one of the primary schools they work with. They sourced and priced out the supplies and email me donation request. The Ejenta Primary school is so poor, it does not even have a pencil to its name. The school is in the Benishangul Gumuz Regional State of Ethiopia.
At the end of December, I transferred the remaining amount plus added an additional amount to round the donation up to $1000.
Soon afterwards, Peggy arranged to purchase school books, workbooks & readers, notebooks, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, colored pencils and two globes to outfit the entire school. She bought all materials from local dealers so not incur any shipping fees, so the whole amount would go toward supplies and also benefit the local economy. She let me know she was planning the distribution on January 12th and would email photos and video of everything shortly after.
I was feeling a bit glum this afternoon, but when I checked my email this evening, I received an email from Peggy documenting the whole distribution!!
It brought a massive smile to my face and brought tears to my eyes….especially when I saw what was written on the chalkboard in a classroom and the video link of the distribution. Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
I just want to take the time to thank everyone who donated to this cause! The donation has positively impacted the village and the school tenfold and the teachers and students are so happy with all the new school supplies.
