Marcellus High School Senior Donates 126 School Kits to Church World Service

Photos: Stu Holden

As a graduation requirement, Marcellus High School seniors must do what is called a "Senior Project." This project is a "hands on" project and each senior must spend a minimum of fifteen hours on their chosen task. I knew I wanted to do something to help someone else, something community based. I realize I have been very fortunate in many, many ways and that there are many people much less fortunate than I. I thought the best way to help others was to work with an agency/organization that does this every day. I chose a proven organization called Church World Service. Choosing them was easy, as I started hearing about them at a very young age at our church. I remember many years ago hearing about and participating in "The CROP Walk" and I remember "Blanket Sunday." I remember for "The CROP Walk" being carried by my Mom and Dad when I was too small to walk, being carried part of the way as I got bigger, and then walking all the way on my own. "Blanket Sunday" made me realize how many functions a simple blanket could perform. It could provide: warmth, shade, privacy, wind barrier, carry all, a litter to carry/drag someone injured or ill. These are just some of the ways I remember how a blanket could be used. “Blanket Sunday" at our church was and continues to be a very important day to my family and I.

In my research of Church World Service, I read that one of the many programs they manage is the collection of school kits. I found out that these school kits are sent within the United States to where natural disasters have taken place, such places include to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and overseas to such places as Kenya and Zimbabwe to mention a few. Just like the "simple" blanket, I had always thought of the school kit items as being pretty basic or "simple" and that pretty much everyone had these items. I was surprised to learn how many kids/students don't have these items and in fact, when they do get them, these items may very well turn into cherished possessions. Based on my research of Church World Service and based on the need of school kits by so many students in this country and around the world, I chose the collection of school kits to be my project.

I learned several things in the process of doing my project.

1. It helps to believe in what you are doing.
2. It is good to work with a person, group or agency that also believes in what you are doing.
3. Never any harm in asking for help. I asked for help in terms of advice, places to deliver my message, and for donations of items and money.
4. You really need to be organized and have a plan as to what will be done when.
5. I was reminded again of how good and generous people can be. People were very kind to me and very generous. One person, who does not know me, wrote a check for $100.00. His money was used to buy some of the lesser-donated items.

I am pleased that I chose this project and believe that the items I collected will be put to good use.

Sarah Holden

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QCNYS President, Dolly Monteleone, (front) and representatives of some of the participating guilds are shown with a portion of the 548 school bags collected.

Compeer Quilting Bee quilters proudly show the school bags made for CWS.

In the spring of 2007, Church World Service (CWS) issued a special appeal for children’s School Kits. Inventories of School Kits in the warehouse had been pulled down to critical levels due to the demands of major emergencies over the past two years. School Kits need school bags and school bags need sewers. Sewers were needed. Aha! Sewers are quilters!

A call to Dolly Monteleone, president of the Quilters Consortium of New York State (QCNYS) resulted in CWS staff person, May Arnett, attending the consortium’s June delegate meeting, where member quilt guilds and businesses were challenged to make school bags. The project information was posted on the home page of the QCNYS web site. At the December delegate meeting held at the Schweinfurth Art Museum in Auburn, NY, more than 500 beautiful school bags were collected!

One quilt group, the Compeer Quilting Bee sewed 47 bags. This not for profit agency serves individuals with mental illness and mental health issues in the Rochester, NY area. “The Quilting Bee works on skill-building and teaches quilting as a therapeutic program with emphasis on living and social skills,” says J. Charmaine Bennett, Quilting Program Coordinator. More than 45 women are served in the program throughout the year and they often give back to the community. They responded immediately to the Quilters Consortium school bag project and sewed 47 bags for Church World Service.

The bags were soon filled with school supplies. One group helping to fill the bags was The Western New York Consortium of International Baccalaureate High Schools. They took 250 bags and collected school supplies to complete CWS School Kits as part of an area-wide service project in February.

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Church World Service shipped more than 150,560 Kits from January through September in 2007. In areas of extreme poverty, CWS partners welcome these precious resources, especially School kits and Baby kits, to support their outreach programs. Following disasters, families displaced from their homes and living in temporary shelters are grateful for Hygiene kits and appreciate the cleaning supplies found in the Emergency Clean-up Buckets when the long task of cleaning up begins. Click here for the most recent shipping report.

CWS Kits make a world of difference in the lives of refugees, displaced people, and victims of natural disasters. Photo: © Annie Griffiths Belt for CWS

New Kit Guide Available
Please call the Upstate New York Regional Office in Syracuse at 1-888-297-2767 for a copy of the new CWS Kit Guide or use the links at the bottom of the page to order online. Note that several changes have been made to some of the Kits this year so read the Kit Guide carefully for the list of items in each Kit.

Pattern for School Bags
Click here for a printer-friendly (PDF file) pattern to sew school bags for School Kits.

2008 Drop-off Sites and Dates Announced
Drop-off locations are set and dates are on the calendar for our annual spring collections of CWS Kits from the Upstate New York Region. Click here for a printer-friendly (PDF file) listing of drop-off sites for 2008.

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When the call went out for School Kits in the fall of 2007, the Parish-Hastings Youth Group not only answered the call, but decided to sew the school bags for the Kits. They completed 28 School Kits and delivered them to Syracuse for special delivery to the warehouse in New Windsor, Maryland in October.

Here, Tim Raner, helped by mom Julie Raner, Alex McAdam, and Kayla Guindon are busy stitching the bags, while Tia Guindon and Kelly Murphy wait their turn at the sewing machines.

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The Sunday School students of Fortsville United Methodist Church recently completed a year-long mission project. The students put together 100 Heart-to-Heart Kid Kits for Church World Service. The students raised money through bake sales, bottle and can returns, held a pancake supper and a coin drive. The students shopped for the supplies and packed the kits. The kits will go to needy children around the world.

Sheryll Hagy
Fortsville United Methodist Church

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- excerpted from: The Lord's Prayer from a Christian community in Nicaragua

So ended devotions on the morning of Thursday, November 8, 2007 at the Church of the Brethren Conference Center in New Windsor, Maryland, where a group of 42 volunteers from Upstate New York had gathered for worship before heading to the warehouse and distribution center to work on CWS Kits. Group participants from Albany to Buffalo, and Watertown to Binghamton enjoyed the fellowship of working side by side to pack shipping containers with School Kits, assemble over 100 Emergency Cleanup Buckets, and perform “quality control” on Hygiene Kits.

	Volunteers pack School Kits into shipping containers.
	While in the warehouse, volunteers packed over 100 Emergency Cleanup Kits from supplies made available through a cooperative effort of CWS and Church of The Brethren. The previous week, 400 Emergency Cleanup Kits helped homeowners clean up after the California fires.
	The pile of Hygiene Kits never seemed to get any smaller, as volunteers worked to remove the toothpaste! Following new guidelines for Hygiene Kits, toothpaste is no longer enclosed in the Kit but boxes of toothpaste are added to each container at time of shipping.
	Just prior to our group’s visit, a shipment of 2,655 Kits from Central NY had arrived in the warehouse and was ready to be unpacked.
Many volunteer hours were also spent in the SERRV, International processing center . This non-profit agency sells food and handcrafted items from artisans around the world. SERRV relies heavily on volunteer groups to help process the merchandise and prepare it for sale. They were very happy to host our large group of industrious workers during the busy holiday season.
CWS calendars provided photos and vignettes of CWS programs for morning devotions each day.

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• Visit the CWS Kits page for instructions on assembling and shipping your kits.
  
  
• Order materials online or phone our national service center, 1-800-297-1516

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