New CHS Club Reaches Across the Globe

In its first full year of existence, the Global Awareness Club (GAC) at Chatham High School successfully managed to touch the lives of many.

            This spring, members of GAC wrote letters and made bracelets for Ugandan school girls supported by Set Her Free.  The letters were delivered this July by Tess Kolker, who said, “I can’t express how happy they were to have received these personalized letters from girls halfway across the globe.  They wore their bracelets proudly, and some of them even wrote letters back.  Their letters were filled with love and gratefulness for their new friends in the U.S.”

            Set Her Free is one of several organizations that have been the beneficiary of the work GAC does.  The Global Awareness Club was created with the goal of raising awareness of global issues, and in its first full year it has done just that.  Since its inception, GAC has raised close to $2,000 through a benefit concert to support UNICEF and the Red Cross, jewelry sales that benefit women in Uganda, and bake sales.

            Tess Kolker, founder and president of GAC, says “I am incredibly proud of the money we have raised as a club for these great causes, but I am more excited about the connections we have made and the lives we have touched, both our own and those we have helped.

            GAC held its first benefit concert in November 2012, and featured musical and spoken word acts along with video, written and spoken information shared about UNICEF and the Red Cross.  This first ever concert hosted by GAC was for CHS students and families, but this year the club hopes to make this annual event open to the public. 

            If you attended Fishawack in 2013 or 2012 you may have seen or even purchased a bracelet from Set Her Free.  This organization takes girls out of the slums and off the streets of Kampala, Uganda, and provides them with education or vocational training.  Of the jewelry sales, 100% of the proceeds go back to Set Her Free.

            “We are very lucky to live in an affluent, safe community.  Most of us don’t know what it is to be hungry, to live in fear of deadly disease, to have to fight for our education, to lose our childhoods because we have to support our families.   My goal for this club is to build a bridge between the people of Chatham and the underprivileged people of the world.  To open our eyes and to reach out, because, as the (anonymous) quote says, “Many small people in small places do many small things that can alter the face of the world.’”

            To explore what the Global Awareness Club has accomplished, or to find out more about global travel and what you can do, visit www.globalawarenessclub.weebly.com or contact Tess Kolker at tesskolker@gmail.com.