The Olds Elementary School Care Club recently reached — and surpassed — its goal of raising $15,000 to build a school in India.
As a result, the Free the Children organization, with which the club is affiliated, gave the group a further $5,000 donation from the organization's Big Dreamer's Award. The award celebrates the efforts of outstanding youth groups in action.
The money was raised by the 40, primarily seven, eight and nine-year-olds through a variety of fundraisers the club held throughout the year. Noah Martens, a Grade 3 student and member of the club, said the effort started when the group heard presentations from other students about work they are doing to help overseas students.
“So we decided to (help) build a school in India,” he said.
The money will also help supply books and teachers for the school, as well as construct a well next to the school to enable girls to attend. Naomi Switzer, a Grade 10 student at Olds High School who heard about the good work the club is doing and decided to join as a senior member, explained that girls in poorer regions often must transport water for their families and because of this, often aren't able to attend school.
“We're going to build a well with fresh water so then more girls can go to school and they don't have to haul water back and forth all day,” she said.
Nicola Schatz, a Grade 6 student at Deer Meadow School, said the club did a variety of fundraisers such as book sales and garage sales. It took the group about a year to raise $14,000. It then got an anonymous $1,000 from a member of the community.
“It feels good knowing that these kids (in India) are going to get an education that they wouldn't have any other way,” Switzer said.
The school, in Bagad, will be the first school in the community.
Mary Schatz, a Grade 3 teacher at OES, said teachers at the school are extremely proud of what the students in the club have been able to accomplish in such a short time. Initially, the objective was to raise $15,000 in three years, but they were able to do it in just a little over a year.
“(The group has) created hope for a whole community, not just the kids who are going to go to school but for the parents of those kids who are probably looking for ways to be able to send their kids to school. They know how important it is for them, but it's not entirely possible in their world,” she said.
Schatz said while teachers will have to talk to students next year about what they would like to do next, she thought a more local project might be a good one to tackle for the group.
“What that is, I don't know. That might be something that will come from them. That might be something that will come up within the community. We'd like to do some local things as well as continue our global citizenship (projects) that we've already got started and we will continue to monitor the progress there,” she said.
