7th-graders will help bring clean water to South Sudan

Over the last several weeks, Watkins Glen seventh-graders have learned the value of water by studying the consequences of no water.

As an assignment in Tammy Kellogg’s seventh-grade English class, the students read “A Long Walk to Water” by Linda Sue Park. The book tells the story of Nya, an 11-year-old girl in South Sudan who must travel two hours from her home twice a day to get the only water available for her family. The path she travels is unsafe and the water she collects is unsanitary.

Kellogg said she gave the students a choice: write an essay about the book or take action in response to what they had learned.

The decision was easy. The action, not so easy.

“We’re raising money so girls won’t have to walk miles a day for dirty water,” seventh-grader Adriana Solomon told a recent meeting of the Watkins-Montour Rotary Club.

The goal of Water for Sudan is $15,000, enough to build a well to change the lives of those girls and their families.

“The Class of 2020 has a vision to make a difference by providing clean water for South Sudan, to bring hope and give them the chance to have some of the opportunities that we have,” states the project’s vision statement.

The seventh-graders are working with the organization Water for South Sudan, which is based in Rochester and was founded by Salva Dut, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan.”

The undertaking includes a marketing campaign of speaking to every student, staffer and administrator in the Watkins Glen school district, as well as to community groups, such as the Rotary Club. The students have designed brochures and website content.

Activities range from loose change jars to T-shirt sales to bottle and can drives to collecting pull tabs from drink cans.

“$15,000 sounds like a lot, and it is,” Kellogg said, but, she added, if each grade level, the staff, the administration and the community raises $1,000, the project becomes attainable.

Swarthout Recycling in Beaver Dams has added the incentive that it will match the value of the pull tabs that are collected.

The five-week project ends on Dec. 15, Kellogg said.

For more information, visit the school district website at www.wgcsd.org, go to Classroom Pages, then High School, then Water for South Sudan. Kellogg can be reached at takellogg@wgcsd.org.

Glenda Gephart covers southern and western Schuyler County in her Seneca South column. Contact her at P.O. Box 65, Reading Center, NY 14876; (607) 535-4844; or glendagephart@htva.net.

http://www.stargazette.com/story/new...hart/19691593/