Posted on: Saturday, March 5, 2005
Students reach out to ill Kenya youths
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writer
When Cathy Riseley's third-grade Island Pacific Academy class heard about the plight of HIV-positive children in a Kenya orphanage, they decided they needed to help.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser Today, they are coming back to school on a Saturday for a huge fund-raiser that includes a swap meet, bake sale and car wash. They will also accept more cans and bottles for recycling.
"We started doing this because all the kids in Kenya are dying because of HIV and AIDS," said 8-year-old Jessica Johnson, whose aunt works with the Feed the Children relief organization. "We were all very sad."
Jordan Tometich, also 8, said he was moved by DVDs on Africa they had watched in class, as well as television shows he saw at home. He and his father have donated items for dozens of hygiene kits class members will mail to the school and orphanage. "We also want to raise a lot of money," he said.
Riseley said the idea came from a regular third-grade social studies unit on Africa. After Johnson's aunt told the class about the Abandoned Baby Center and the Dagoretti School for the disabled in Kenya, the youths decided they wanted to do something to help. "From there it just snowballed," she said.
Island Pacific Academy third-graders are hosting "Helping Kenya's Kids Day" from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at their Kapolei Campus.
The fund-raiser will include a swap meet, car wash, bake sale and beverage-container recycling drive. The proceeds will benefit Feed the Children Organization's Abandoned Baby Center and Dagoretti School for the Disabled in Kenya.
Island Pacific Academy is at 909 Haumea St., behind Kapolei Library. The project has helped them learn social studies and has taught them about economics in a very real way. After today's event, they will have to count the money and visit the bank to get a check to send to Feed the Children.
The children have no set goal of how much they want to raise, but they would like to have enough so the Dagoretti School can purchase a computer that would allow the two schools to keep in touch via e-mail for years to come.
Riseley said the children decided to focus on Kenya about the same time the Indian Ocean tsunami struck. The children, who had just learned about AIDS, wanted to concentrate on that issue. "It's an everyday problem," Riseley said. "It's something the world needs to pay attention to."
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.
For the past six weeks they have been gathering toothpaste and school supplies, collecting bottles and aluminum cans and going through their belongings to find things they no longer need.
Mitchell Miller, 9, shows off a skateboard that is among the items he and fellow Island Pacific Academy third-graders are donating to help raise money for HIV-positive children at a Kenya orphanage. In the background is teacher Cathy Riseley.
Service learning is a guiding philosophy at the new Kapolei private school, and the children regularly hear that if they see a need, they should do what they can to help. These children have taken that to heart as they've formed committees, written press releases and worked before and after school to promote the event.
Fund-raiser
