Archive: Around Town

The Lansing High School gymnasium and cafeteria was transformed into a Jambo Jamboree Saturdy, as the Partnership of African and Lansing Schools (PALS) held its third annual partnership celebration.  The event raised money to build a library at the Mbaka Oromo school in Kenya, where PALS has already helped fund seven classrooms. 

"We ask the schools always what their priorities are," says organizer Cindy van Es.  "They said their dream has always been to just have a small library because there is no electricity at the schools, and the kids are often there from 6 in the morning until 6 at night.  They try to use the light as much as possible, but there is no where for them to just sit and look at books even after school."


The Jambo Jamboree was aimed at kids, featuring a bounce house, bungee races, dance-dance-revolution competitions, Kenyan games, arts and crafts, face painting, pizza dinners, and baked goods.  But the hit of the event was Sumo wrestling, where kids decked out in heavily padded suits and tried to knock each other down.

Last year the event was held in milder weather, but organizers wanted to try something different this time.  "People thought, 'why don't we experiment and move it to the winter because it's just so hectic around June?'" van Es says.  "We have the 4th grade trip, the 8th grade trip, the timing in June with graduation and (SATs) was just too hard.  We just decided to move it back and maybe it would be fun for the kids who have been in all winter."


That night PALS held a Rock To Read concert featuring popular local bands like the Sim Redmond Band, Final Call, and Microwave This.  Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, so the concert was not well attended.  But PALS managed to raise $3,000 for the day.  The Cargill Cayuga mine also donated $5,000 towards the project.  


"Five thousand dollars would just about do the building and the shelves, and any extra would go towards everything inside the building," van Es says.  "If we even get more than that, our next big goal is to do a teacher exchange to bring one of their teachers here, and to send one of our teachers over there."

van Es says that fifth grade science teacher Theresa Arsenault has already expressed an interest in participating in the teacher exchange.  Because the Kenyan school year is on a different schedule from Lansing's she says Arsenault would be able to teach there without losing time from her Lansing schedule.  Last year Arsenault's class shared a project on local birds with the Kenyan students.  Lansing students made a book with drawings and information about birds that are indigenous to Lansing.  The book was sent to Africa and Kenyan students replied in kind.


Seventh grade English teacher Judy Hinderliter has integrated a section on Kenyan literature into her curriculum as well.  She has worked with PALS Education Director Maureen Bell developed the section, which includes correspondence between Lansing and Kenyan students on 'A day in the life of.'

PALS was formed in response to a New York Times article in 2004.  The article described the challenges Kenyan schools face with pressure to provide free primary education, and described the challenges AIDS infected students there face.

Before PALS got involved school buildings were made of mud and dung, which melted in heavy rain storms.  The new classrooms are made of brick with wooden desks also donated by the Lansing group.  A Rochester school has partnered with PALS to build four additional classrooms and a kitchen. 

The school has books, but no place to house them.  "They are in closets and the principals office," van Es says.  "There is no space for them to put them out.  So they can't really control having the kids use them.  Kenya has a very rigid curriculum because they take national state exams that decide where you go to high school and if you go to college, so they have a very rigid educational system.  So this will give them a place to put them and a place for the children to use the daylight and read them in a nice space."


van Es says that her family hopes to visit the school, possibly in January.  She and husband Harold plan to take their children Marlene, Martin, and Peter along.  Last year Chris Barrett and his daughter Joanna visited the school, their suitcases stuffed with notebooks the Girl Scouts had purchased with money from selling cookies.  African students wrote letters to Lansing students which they ripped out of the notebooks to send back here.  They got to keep the notebooks.

"Pencils and paper are very precious," van Es explains.  "The whole village came -- the town elders, the school board -- for the official suitcase opening ceremony.  It was like a very huge deal and the desks have inscribed in them 'PALS, Lansing, New York.'  So they feel very close and they are very aware of when we do fundraisers and it means a lot to them that a school, half way across the world, the kids here care about them and their education.

While one purpose is to raise money, PALS also facilitates a cultural exchange between the Kenyan and Lansing schools.  "Our goal has really been, when we wrote our strategic plan, that both sides are donors and recipients," van Es explains.  "We really feel strongly about that because our kids have a lot to learn about community service, cultural empathy awareness, and their kids also feel that empathy, so that's important."

van Es says that the event is the perfect way to have fun and do good at the same time.  "Some of the letters you get say, 'Oh, I was going to give up, but somebody else cares so now I'm going to study hard,'" she says.  "So I think it is a wonderful impact on both sides."

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