Thank you so much to the Alvin Sun newspaper and publisher David Rupkalvis for their great article about my trip in today’s edition. So excited to be on the front page!
Here are two of my favorite excerpts:
Since then, year after year, Watkins’s students have embraced the school in Uganda. Every year, a new class of sixth-graders becomes pen pals, and when needed the students have become ambassadors for their friends across the globe with various fundraisers.
One year, the Harby students learned 35 Uganda students would not be back in class because they couldn’t pay the entry fee. In response, the sixth-graders raised money to pay for the school fees. In Uganda, the school fee covers breakfast, lunch, medical care and school supplies.
“We were able to put 35 kids back in school,” Watkins said.
“I’m never pursuing fundraisers,” Watkins said. “It’s my students who won’t let it go.”
Last year, the bore hole that provides water to the school went out. As a result, the only way to get water was to take buckets, walk to the nearby lake and drag the buckets back to the school. Again, the students decided to raise funds to help.
And they did.
The full article does require a small fee for a subscription. The full article is now available for free. It can be found here. If they put a publicly available version online, I’ll update this blog with the link.