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The O Ambassadors Club at Manitou Park Elementary School held its second annual walk-a-thon for West Africa on May 20. The club sold paper “shoes” for $1, promoting the theme “Walk in Someone Else’s Shoes.” The students sought pledges for walking laps in the park and collected “change for change.” This year’s fundraising will help build a secondary school in Manitou Park’s adopted community of Domeabra in Ghana, West Africa.
“Making a Difference in Our World a Little Bit at a Time” is the motto of one small group of dedicated third, fourth and fifth graders and three staff members at Manitou Park. Fourth-grade teacher Earla Reed learned about the O Ambassadors program on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site and felt it would be a wonderful way to help focus students on making the world a better place. The O Ambassadors program is an international program jointly sponsored by Oprah’s Angel Network and Kids Can Free the Children. Manitou Park applied last year to start up a club and was selected.
The purpose of the O Ambassadors Club is to create sustainable solutions to global challenges through active learning, idea sharing and positive involvement in the community. The Manitou Park Club focuses on learning about the United Nations’ four Millennium goals: poverty, health, education and sustainable development.
Last year, the O Ambassador’s Club raised $1,500 for development projects in a small village in Sierra Leone.
This year to date, the Manitou Park club has emphasized conserving resources, learning about the overabundance of plastics in the environment and “greening your routine.” The club applied for a grant that brought in two guest speakers. One was a young man from the Congo, West Africa, who had been captured and forced to be a boy soldier. He shared his story and told the Manitou Park students how difficult life is for people in other parts of the world. He also emphasized how every little thing people do for children in other countries, such as Africa, can make a big difference. Where he came from getting an education is the primary desire of most children because they know that an education is their way to a better life.
With his story in mind, the Manitou Park O Ambassadors’ fundraising efforts are focused on raising money to help build a secondary school for Manitou Park’s adopted community of Domeabra in Ghana, West Africa. By selling Val-o-grams, personal messages to friends and classmates with a lollipop attached, the students raised $500.
Reed and Principal Mary Wilson believe that working for the benefit of others is healthy for everyone. Reed said, “Even our poorest families here in America are wealthy in comparison to those in the African community we are sponsoring. It really helps us to keep things in perspective. It also gives our young people a sense of empowerment to know that they can make a difference a little bit at a time!”