| The tote bags are made and need donations to help fill them with school supplies. |
4-H Seeks Donations of School Supplies
Emery County 4-H is helping to sponsor a school in Kenya, Africa. This school is the Ngala School for the Deaf. Deaf children in Africa cannot associate in any way with hearing children and do not receive much funding for education. In fact, to maintain one child for the school year it costs $200.
Last year, one extension agent and 4-H volunteer youth were sent to Africa. While they were there they were able to teach the youth in this facility how to use sewing machines and knitting looms, With the knowledge they gained they were able to produce quilts, pajama pants and hats for their own use. The African youth generally have one set of clothing and little bedding. The students are often the victims of robberies, so they have little in the way of possessions. This year, we hope to send school kits to these youth.
To help with the school kits, the 4-H Summer Sewing Camp helped make tote bags for the school items to be placed in. The kits will be sent to Kenya sometime in late September or October. We are hoping to fill at least 20 school bags.
4-H has long been a service oriented organization. Many of you or your youth have participated in some 4-H activity. We now are asking your help in donating much needed school supplies to place in the bags. We also need more bags if anyone wants to make them. There are instructions in the Extension Office, 75 East Main, #114.
Needed school supplies are: boxes of chalk (12 pieces), chalkboard erasers, notebook paper (fits a three ring binder) in sealed packages of 150 sheets, pencil sharpeners, blunt nosed scissors with metal blades. Many pencils have already been donated, but we will accept more if donated. They need to be #2.
If you cannot donate school supplies, we will be happy to accept any monetary donation you’d like to make. We need chalkboards for the kits. We hope to receive enough donated money to purchase a large sheet of chalkboard and have it cut for us. Of course, if anyone has chalkboards that are 9.5 X 12 inches they want to donate, please do so.
If you have questions or want to make donations, please contact the Utah State University Extension Office in the old courthouse or call 381-2381 and we’ll pick them up.
This is a great opportunity to share our wealth with others. Please donate anything you can. Donations need to be in our office no later than Sept. 19.