Avondale Middle School students raise $1000 to build well in Africa

Avondale Middle School students present a check for $1000.20 to Larry Norman of KIBO Group (l to r) Cara Steves, Denisse Garcia, Delilah Clark, Taryn McClelland, Norman, Elizabeth Fulton, Teagan Moose, and Kayla Eggen (not pictured Charlotte Cash).

After hearing the devastating consequences for people living in Africa without a clean water source, eight Avondale Middle School students decided to take action. The group, all members of the school’s Leadership Class, created a plan with a goal of raising $500 to donate to the international organization, KIBO Group. KIBO is a nonprofit organization that partners with East Africans to find local solutions for poverty to help communities flourish. A focus of the organization is finding ways to insure there are clean water sources for rural communities.

Eighth-grader Taryn McClelland, who learned about the shortage of clean water in Africa from family friend and KIBO volunteer Larry Norman, shared what Norman had to say with her classmates. “I knew they (her classmates) would want to help,” she said, “and I knew that we could make a difference for kids and make their lives better.” Norman came to the school to speak to Taryn’s Leadership Class and Taryn and her classmates went to work.

Taryn joined with fellow Leadership students Charlotte Cash, Delilah Clark, Kayla Eggen, Elizabeth Fulton, Denisse Garcia, Teagan Moose, and Cara Steves to develop a fundraiser. The Avondale Middle School Leadership Class, under the direction of teacher, Scott Thornbro, challenges students to uncover a need - locally, state-wide, nationally or internationally – and then find a way to fill that need. Students are required to submit a proposal that defines the need and identifies an action for filling the need. The submitted proposal includes a plan with implementation steps and a timeline, research, a budget, and methods to engage the school-wide student body in supporting the plan.

The group of eight students defined the need in this case as funds to build a new well in the African village of Nabituluntu. The students decided to hold a carnival complete with games and refreshments. “We had some usual carnival games like ring toss, ping pong in a cup, and a guessing jar but we also added a water carrying game,” said eighth-grader Kayla Eggen describing a game designed to demonstrate how difficult it would be for a young person to carry water a long distance. “We wanted the Avondale kids to kind of learn how hard it is for kids in Africa to have to get water from a pond and then carry it all the way home” she said. Throughout the planning for the carnival, it was important for Taryn, Kayla, and the other students in their group to also raise awareness about the living conditions of children in Africa.

To that end, the group developed a Power Point that was presented to the student body and talked with their classmates about the devastating health risks faced by children living in areas around the world without a clean water source. “I think we wanted to get in to perspective that not everyone is blessed with luxuries and many people live without things that we take for granted – like water,” Kayla explained. “We wanted everyone to know that people need our help and we should help.”

The carnival exceeded the group’s fundraising goal of $500 and the students presented KIBO Group with a check for $1000.20.