There is a woman in our town who has started a small school in Nepal called the Sunshine School. The children who attend this school are the poorest of the poor. She was made aware of the need for a school for them while on vacation there, and has made it her life mission to help these children. When she isn’t in Nepal working with the children directly, she is traveling around trying to raise donations to keep it going. Since she is local, her cause is well known to many people, and every couple of years someone in town does something to raise money for her. This year it was the two Kindergarten classes.
Alexandra and her friends spent a couple of months making crafts to sell at a Christmas bazaar. The cost of the materials was partially funded by the school, partly by the teachers themselves. They were all useful items that could be eventually used up, making less clutter for the long term. We LOVE that kind of thing. 🙂 On Wednesday, December 12th, we all headed over to the school for the bazaar.
The teachers had sent out notices not just to the parents of the children in the kindergarten, but also to all the parents in the school, as well as people in the community. We were instructed to bring lots of small coins, as the children would be unable to give change. (They’re only 5 and 6, after all.) There was also a food table where donated items were being sold to raise even more money. I brought some lemon filled cookies, a new to me recipe, and they were very popular. I guess they looked pretty fancy because they were sold for 2 Franks a piece!
After an adorable concert full of fun Christmas songs, the children were sent to their specific stations and the selling began. It was first-come first-served, and the items all went really fast. There were a few things that Alexandra had made that I wanted to buy, but they were already gone by the time she could point out to me which ones they were. Still, we did get a couple of her beautifully decorated matchboxes, and we also bought some mini-notebooks, Christmas cards made by Alexandra and a few other things that the kids picked out. Of course everyone got to choose something from the food table as well.
The next day I went to pick up my now empty cookie tray and I ran into Noah’s former Kindergarten teacher. We started chatting about the evening and she told me they were able to raise over 1,200 Franks for the school. They were thrilled. Amazing what a determined group of small children can accomplish. Good job, Alexandra!