Port Chester Students Donate Funds To Build Wells In South Sudan

PORT CHESTER, NY — Water wells in South Sudan from donations made by Port Chester Middle School eighth-grade students have been built. In May 2016, the students won a grand prize in the national Lead2Feed Challenge. The 49 students in teacher Allison Silverman’s Leadership classes donated a total of $35,000 to Water for South Sudan, a nonprofit based in Rochester, that helps develop wells and other basic infrastructure in South Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world.

This week, Silverman was notified that the two wells the middle school community donated have been built and are serving their community, according to a district spokeswoman. The first is in the village of Mangar Adet and the second is in Ahtiaan Akuei — both in Barial Baai, Wau State, South Sudan.

“Thank you so much for your generous sponsorship of these wells,” said Lucie Parlin, donor relations coordinator at Water for South Sudan. “Please know they will truly make a life-changing and life-saving difference to the people of Magar Adet and Athiaan Akuei.”

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The students’ project, inspired by the book “A Long Walk to Water,” was a school-wide effort to raise $10,000 for Water for Sudan. They submitted their project to the national Lead2Feed Challenge and out of 2500 entries, PCMS Leadership students won one of six grand prizes: $25,000 to add to their donation to Water for Sudan and $10,000 in technology supplies for Port Chester Middle School.

The students in the 2015-2016 eighth-grade Leadership class, were: Isabella Aguirre, Lia Aleman, Tone Alex, Jaclyn Bautista, Jose Cabrera, Blayne Cameron, Inocencia DeJesus, Adriana Duchimaza, Maydelin Farias, Jessica Garcia, Matilde Garcia, Maximilian Gillespi, Riley Gillespie, Esteban Gonzalez, Luis Gonzalez, Jennifer Guzman, Gerardo Hernandez, Julissa Hernandez, Alia James, Ikra Konukcu, Mehmet Konukcu, Jonnathan Loja, Luis Loja, Miguel Lopez, Maira Medina, Anthony Mendez, Aurora Sophia Montenegro, Gopika Nair, Joanna Olivares, Kiara Ortiz, Joshua Payne, Matheus Pereir, Mariela Pineda, Karen Ramos, Diana Rodriguez, Isabel Romero, Xiomara Torres, Oscar Umanzor, and Alex Wilczewski.

Anyone wishing to see where the wells are located using Google Earth, the GPS coordinates are: 08° 06' 9.24" 028° 09' 9.49" and 08° 05' 7.31" 028° 09' 8.41".

Photo credit: Submitted.