A Dime at a Time, Prep Students Raise Money for School in Kenya

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI – Students from two elite prep schools Cranbrook Schools and Detroit Country Day School are competing to see which can collect the most spare change to build a school in Kenya, where students live in abject poverty and attend schools with dirt floors.

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Cranbrook and Detroit Country Day School are fierce rivals, but Cranbrook junior Emman Ponicall, who traveled to Kenya on a mission trip with his mother in 2014, decided the competition between the school could up the ante in a fundraising campaign, WWJ/CBS Local reports.

He helped organize the “Loose Change Challenge” to raise the money needed for the school. So far, the students have raised $40,000 for the school, which is estimated to cost around $75,000. You can give here.

Cranbrook student Claire Brophy said wanted to support the project after comparing the advantages she and her peers have to “how unfortunate some of the situations these kids were in.”

“They have such big dreams,” she said. ”I want to help make that possible because I know that it’s really hard to do that from a dirt floor — with no really structured education — I want to give them the opportunities I have.”

Country Day School 10th grader Lauren Boos said she was shocked at the lack of opportunities available to the students in Kenya.

Image credit: Shawn Carpenter via Flickr / Creative Commons