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Build a School, Brick by Brick

Those of you who have read my early entries may remember that I lead a student group at school with a humanitarian focus called “Helping Other People Everywhere” (or, as we fondly call it, HOPE). While our group is involved in both local and global issues, our main project for the last couple of years has been Free the Children’s “Brick by Brick” campaign. It costs $8500 to build a school in a developing nation, and HOPE has been striving to raise the funds in order to build a school in rural Kenya.

While we were fundraising for the school, we began to think, “Well, don’t girls in the countryside have to walk hours and hours every single day to get water that’s not even clean? What’s the use of building a school when the girls won’t even be able to attend – and what if children get sick from the dirty water and education becomes the least of their worries?" Naturally, we decided to add an extra $1000 to our goal so that we could build a clean-water well next to the school.

$9500 is nothing to scoff at, and as life got more chaotic and we became more and more realistic, raising the money seemed like a truly daunting task. I can tell you that we made complete idiots of ourselves… repeatedly. Bake sales are all fun and interesting when you’re organizing it for the first time, but when you’re so stuck on ideas that you keep rehashing the bake sale idea for the umpteenth time?? Not fun.

But… why would I have brought this up if there wasn’t a happy ending to this story, right? After almost two years of various fundraisers, as well as support from some very generous sponsors (thank you, Ms. Stiles, and MRE) we have finally achieved our goal!

It’s quite a surreal experience, to think that months of work have actually met a successful end. Just imagine – a school and a well being built in a Kenyan village! Generations of children will have the opportunity to become educated, improve their lives and escape the cycle of poverty.

And as much as I’ve complained and griped about raising the money, $9500 is nothing compared to the opportunity to give better lives to countless children. Students here in Canada could feasibly complete a project like this in their schools or youth organizations! That’s a pretty encouraging thought, isn’t it? Like I always say, it’s honestly not too hard to make a difference in the world.

Out of curiosity – is there anyone who is doing something like the Brick by Brick project with their school right now? I’d like to hear about how YOUR efforts are coming along…