North Adams First Graders Give A Helping Hand (Photos)

In this day and times it seems like we hear a lot of bad news, so when you hear about some kids doing good for other children in a far-off country you have to share

It takes a lot of people to get a load of books from North Adams to an African village. IBerkshires.com reports that Brayton Elementary School first-grade teachers Elizabeth Patenaude and Jacqueline Thomas recently spearheaded an effort to send 60 reading textbooks to Chesegem Primary School in Eldoret South, Kenya.

This project started months ago, back in November when Patenaude and Thomas found out that the curriculum was being updated, leaving a bunch of old textbooks with no home. They encouraged students to take some books home and even reached out to hurricane-stricken areas in the South to see if any schools there could use them, but in the end, they were faced with a choice, throw them away or find another plan.

They were assisted by Leon Aalberts, a retired teacher and minister from Williamstown, as well as Williams College student and Kenyan native Felix Biwott and two classes of eager first-grade students.

They hope to send more of the old textbooks that are still being stored in a closet at Brayton over to Kenya, as this first batch did not allow for every student to have his or her own book. This time they might be able to either ship them right to the Kenyan consulate in Los Angeles or even have them driven to an office the Washington, D.C., to be able to get them to Kenya more inexpensively.

So Many smiling and Happy Faces!

All photos courtesy of the North Adams School System