'Read-A-Thon' raises money for orphanage in Aceh

Yenni Djahidin, Contributor, Washington

The morning was bitterly cold, so cold that school was delayed for two hours.

Clad in warm winter clothes, students arrived, one by one, in the third-grade classroom. The first to arrive was nine-year-old Zubeir Ali. His big brown eyes looked with suspicion at a strange face in his classroom.

Quietly, he took off his heavy coat and hung it at the back of the room.

When asked if he had read something for the Read-A-Thon, Zubeir flashed a friendly smile and gave a positive answer. "I raised US$20," he said proudly. Zubeir said his father promised to give him the money for the Tsunami relief effort.

Zubeir and about 120 other third-graders are raising money to help build and maintain an orphanage in Aceh. The idea came from a third-grade teacher, Barbara Blazek. She is also an adviser to Orphan International (OI), a nonprofit organization that builds and maintains orphanages around the world.

OI now supports two orphanages in Indonesia: one in Bali, the other in Sulawesi.

Blazek said she wanted a fund-raising campaign where students were actively involved. After several ideas, she and other teachers came up with the "Read-A-Thon.

Blazek said the idea was simple. For a week, the students would be freed from their regular homework assignments, except for mathematics. Instead, they were asked to read to earn money for tsunami victims. They would be paid based on how many pages they read.

They were also asked to recruit sponsors, mainly family members and close friends.

"I think it's so important that kids be involved in raising the money," said Blazek, before her class started.

She also said they wanted to do something fast without a lot of planning, so they could raise the money quickly. She expects to raise around one thousand dollars from the Read-A-Thon.

"I told the kids to read a lot and make me poor because I will support everyone," she said. Blazek hoped that the parents would help support the students' efforts.

Rebecca Shaw, 8, who arrived at school just after Zubeir, said she had raised $30 by reading the book Hamster the Holy.

Blazek, 33, has been helping Orphan International with developing its curriculum and house parent training. She has also taught around the world at schools in Cairo, Moscow and Brazil.

"I loved Orphan International's goal of keeping the kids in their home country and giving them the best education and best family support to be good leaders and citizens," she said.

Blazek has been teaching at Spring Hill Elementary School for a year. The school is part of the Fairfax County public school system, one of the largest and best public school systems in the United States.

Located just outside Washington DC, the school is attended by children from many cultural backgrounds. Many children speak languages other than English.

The gymnasium has 58 flags, including one from Indonesia, to represent the countries of origin of the students.

School principal Roger Vanderhye also gained international experience before joining Spring Hill Elementary. He worked as a principal in Saudi Arabia and Belgium.

Besides the Read-A-Thon, Spring Hill students will also raise money for OI through selling candy-grams for Valentine's Day in February.

On the Net:
Orphan International Worldwide: http://www.oiww.org