School kids pack kits for Haitians
Benton First UMC received boxes and boxes of items for health kits from
Marshall County school kids. UMNS Photos courtesy of Sue Engle.
By Cathy Farmer*
8:00 AM EST, Feb. 3, 2010 | MARSHALL COUNTY, Ky. (UMNS)
Valerie Shutt, left, and Carolyn Rodriguez helped
sort 150 boxes and bags of supplies.
|
Ten schools in Marshall County, Ky., collected 1,200 UMCOR health kits
for Haitian earthquake survivors.
The effort began at a student council meeting in Benton
Elementary School.
Days after the earthquake, Chloe, a fifth-grade
member of the council, said, “One of the things I saw [on TV] was a
little baby. The baby was injured pretty badly. Just to be so small and
not know what was going on. I think that would scare me. They have a
whole life ahead of them. It would be scary to start your life out like
that.”
Challenge issued
Dianna Easley, a fifth-grade teacher and sponsor
of the student council, told the children about The United Methodist
Church’s effort to send thousands of health kits to Haiti.
The council leapt at the chance to help. They
challenged all the schools in Marshall County to join them in filling
bags with hand towels, washcloths, combs, nail files, soap, toothbrushes
and adhesive bandages.
Lexee, also a member of the student council, added
that it felt really good to be part of making stuff for Haiti. “I
wonder what I would feel like if it were me in that situation and what I
would do and how I would feel if people would help me like this,” she
said.
Stacey Bradley: “Most of our students were aware of
the disaster and wanted to make
an impact.”
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The students in the county school system, which
includes six elementary schools, three middle schools, and one high
school, soon gathered more than 50 large boxes of materials.
Stacey Bradley, an assistant principal at Marshall
County High School, picked up the boxes from the 10 schools.
Lessons learned
“One elementary student asked if I was going to
drive the items to Haiti,” Bradley laughed. “I told them it would be
trucked then shipped.
“So there are more lessons here besides
humanitarianism,” he said. “They’ll tie this to their school lessons.”
The boxes and bags were transferred to First
United Methodist Church in Benton, Ky., where church members spent an
evening filling one-gallon plastic bags with the contents.
Susan Engle, the church’s director of program ministry, said they
prepared 1,200 kits and had 14 extra boxes of supplies. The kits will be
added to the Memphis Conference-wide effort and shipped to Sager Brown,
the United Methodist Committee on Relief depot in Louisiana.
*Farmer is director of communications for the Memphis
Conference.
News media contact: Joey Butler, Nashville, Tenn., (615)
742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
Slideshow
Photos from team in Haiti
Video
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Video from Haiti: Youth Pack Food
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