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Students Share With Africa
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Seniors at an alternative high school in South Carolina have stepped outside the classroom for an extraordinary lesson in geography and economics. A teacher challenged teens to pack a warehouse of supplies for shipment to students in Zimbabwe. Heidi Robinson reports. |
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SCRIPT:
(Locator: Columbia, South Carolina)
Retired, but not tired, Francie Markham spent a year filling this
two-thousand square foot warehouse in Columbia South Carolina. Donated
computers, desks, blackboards, text books and a host of supplies are
stacked six to eight feet high in places…bound for a careworn school and
community in Zimbabwe.
Francie Markham, Retired Teacher: “A sharpened pencil is a great hope
when someone doesn’t have one.”
United Methodist church workers will distribute the shipment. But first,
this maze of supplies must be boxed, catalogued, and packed on pallets
to travel almost nine-thousand miles. Nothing ships if it’s not
ship-shape.
Francie Markham: “I need an army to help me pack.”
Francie’s troops arrive in sneakers and school vans.
Francie Markham: “You will end up making the quality of their life
better with each box you’re packing.”
Student: “Look at all this stuff!”
Thirty students break into groups, wrapping furniture, boxing physics
books, and appreciating simple things taken for granted.
D’Aundra Tyler, High School Student: “It would like bring tears, because
they don’t have clothes. They don’t have food. And that we can help them
because they are struggling.”
Ashley organizes sanitary supplies for female students…supplies that are
unavailable.
Ashley Thompson, High School Student: “It’s just taking a woman’s pride
away from her that should not be taken away.”
Today, Francie’s students linked hands with students on the other side
of the world.
Francie Markham: “What you’re doing is an enormous, enormous service.”
Francie will make another trip to see the supplies put to use in Africa.
Francie Markham: “We can’t just leave them and say, ‘Oh well that’s too
bad.’ We have to dream for them while we are here.”
TAG:
It will cost $10,000 to ship the container to Zimbabwe. Donations from
United Methodist churches in South Carolina will defray the cost. The
donations will also fund a second cargo container filled primarily with
food, to help relieve famine conditions in Zimbabwe.