Birchland Park Middle School raises funds for drinking wells in South Sudan

Date: 2/12/2015

EAST LONGMEADOW – Birchland Park Middle School has partnered with H20 for Life, a national organization raising money to build clean water wells for communities in South Sudan, and thus far, has raised more than $3,000 of its $8,250 to construct a well.

Kalen Schloyer, library media specialist at Birchland Park, said the program started this past summer when all students and staff members read “A Long Walk to Water” by Linda Sue Park.

“The H20 program was started by a teacher in Minnesota who had also read the same book as us,” she explained. “She wanted the kids in her school to be involved in doing something with the book and they founded this nonprofit organization so that other schools could also build wells in South Sudan, but also in other places in the world.”

Discussions and feedback from the book led to fundraising, which started in September 2014, Schloyer said.

“What they do is, they get a well and then they build a school and a town springs up around it,” she added. “That’s how it starts.”

A Long Walk to Water was published by Clarion Books on Nov. 15, 2010 and is a based on the true story of its main character Salva, one of about 3,800 Sudanese “Lost Boys,” who were airlifted to the United States in the early-and mid-1990s, according to a synopsis on Park’s website.

Salva led about 150 boys on foot through hundreds of miles of hostile territory, overcoming starvation, disease, and animal attacks, before reaching safety in Kenya. He was then relocated in Upstate New York, where he learned English and continued on to college. He eventually returned to southern Sudan and established a foundation that installs deep-water wells is remote villages.

Birchland Park Principal Timothy Allen said A Long Walk to Water was part of the school’s “One School, One Book” program.

“That’s led itself into sort of trying to raise awareness of world issues as well as raise awareness of how even middle school students can have a large impact on the world around them,” he added. “Here at Birchland, we’ve had numerous fundraisers up and running.”

One such fundraiser is a pasta dinner at Birchland Park, scheduled for March 5 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available in advance from the school or at the door. The cost is $10 for adult and $5 for anyone 14 years old or younger.

“It’s going to cost us very little to put on the dinner, so it’s going to be almost 100 percent profit for the [H20 for Life fundraiser],” Schloyer said.

Fundraising efforts have also included T-shirt and water bottle sales, a carnation sale, bake sales, and students collecting donations at local events, individual and group donations, as well as running booths and games during the local Rotary Club's Autumn Fair in October 2014, Allen said.

The Valentine’s Day carnation sale resulted in $400 toward fundraising efforts, he added. Mark Henry Florist of Indian Orchard donated more than 400 carnations, which were sold for $1 each.

“On May 16 we’re going to have a 5K road race in the morning,” Allen said. “It’ll start and finish here at Birchland Park and students are putting that together.”

A golf tournament will also take place on May 9 at Franconia Golf Course in Springfield, Schloyer said. More information on the 5K road race and the golf tournament will be made available as the events approach.  

Schloyer said one student volunteered to collect donations from people who were casting their ballots during the town election last year. The student collected more than $500 during the entire day.

“We’ve had some kids come in who have raised money at church functions and they’ve come in with those donations and given them,” she added. “The kids have been great.”

Allen said Birchland Park has an advisory program, where every student is in a small group with a staff member each day.

“This sort of becomes their family inside the school and that is what’s driving the fundraising,” he added. “Different advisories take on different projects, so I have an advisory and my advisory decided they want to put on a 5K. But we really want to be student driven and it has been.”

For more information about Birchland Park H20 For Life fundraiser or to donate visit www.h2oforlifeschools.org/index.php/about-h2o-for-life/item/587-birchland-park-middle-school.