BIG DAY AT BUYANGA PRIMARY SCHOOL!

Tie-dying with Buyanga students

Volunteers from Global Village Connect are in the village of Buyanga, delivering Peace Flags and tie dying with the students there.  They're also working on letters to send back to their pen pals, checking in on the health of the farm, and strategizing with students about ways we can work together to try to meet some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  Our deepest gratitude to the Global Village volunteers who are facilitating our partnership with Buyanga Primary School.  May we all be healthier and happier for investing in this friendship!

Notice Radnor pen pals' Peace Flags hanging on the back wall!

Sharing What We're Learning: The Peace Flag Collaboration

        This is pure joy.  Radnor Middle School students are capturing something meaningful they've learned and putting this on fabric flags that will hang in classrooms at Buyanga Primary School. 

    The teachers at Buyanga are incredible, but they have almost no resources beyond a very tired chalkboard for teaching their students.  However, the Peace Flags are durable and educational.  

    Radnor Pen Pals created flags with the 5 Themes of Geography; diagrams of volcanoes, flowers, the water cycle; math equations and multiplication and addition tables; scientific terminology and favorite words of wisdom.  They are made by hand and with love, and it's a beautiful way to capture some of what they're learning and sharing it with others.

                   




                       

We're also writing letters to the students at Buyanga.  It takes a lot of patience to get a letter back from a child who lives in the bush in southeastern Uganda, but it's well worth the wait.                                                      

        

          

Thanks for Giving

Buyanga Primary School students in the farm we helped create

     This is the season for gratitude and for giving.  While you and your family are planning meaningful gifts, kindly consider a contribution to the Buyanga School farm.  The Pen Pal & Popcorn Club specializes in sustaining relationships and sharing the best of our selves with our friends far away.  When you contribute to this project, you are able to follow the progress of this farm for years to come through this blog.  When you make a contribution through Global Village Connect, you will receive a gift card acknowledging the donation.  Really, what could be more meaningful than nourishing our pen pals for years to come?  As always, thank YOU for giving!   Here's the link to donate: Buyanga Farm Donation

This is Why we Do It!

Keep in mind, pen pals, THIS IS WHY WE DO IT!  

The students of Buyanga Primary School are grateful for all you are doing to ensure that their farm thrives.  Our efforts on their behalf is changing lives.  We can document the effect of our work:  School enrollment and completion rates have increased dramatically because the pupils receive lunch each day they attend school.  Not too many middle schoolers can claim to have made this kind of impact on the world.  You are powerful and amazing!  

This holiday season, consider a gift that you can watch grow: help keep the farm at Buyanga Primary School thriving.  Visit Global Village Connect and follow the TAKE ACTION>GIVE A GIFT links to make a contribution that we will foster together!  Thank you for caring.

These Ghouls Give

It's hard to imagine that one haunted house full of 100 zombies could could cultivate a farm that feeds hundreds of students in one school far away, but these are no ordinary zombies...they are also pen pals with hearts that never die.  Here are some highlights from our Halloween fundraiser.  Next time we'll share pictures of our sister school in Uganda and show you how our efforts are impacting the world.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving in our community, I want to thank everyone who participated in our haunted house, whether you played a role on stage, backstage, or you visited our haunted house and enjoyed some of Abuelita's incredible empanadas, you were a critical part of this event.  Thank you to everyone in this community who understands how gratifying it can be to give to others all around the globe.

Get your freak on!

 

 RMS PEN PALS ARE CHANGING THE WORLD

WE WILL, WE WILL HAUNT YOU!!!

TOMORROW NIGHT...THE ZOMBIES WILL PROVIDE THE FRIGHT - ABUELITA'S WILL PROVIDE THE EMPANADAS.  AFRICAN JEWELRY & DELICIOUS BAKE SALE IN THE CAF.  COME OUT AND SUPPORT THE BUYANGA SCHOOL FARM

        SEE YOU THERE...IF YOU DARE!!!!!

ZOMBIE INVASION OCTOBER 30th!

Get ready...because 100 zombies are on their way to Radnor Middle School next Monday, Oct. 30th! This is all in support of the school farm at Buyanga Primary School in Uganda where RMS students are taking the Global Education goal of  Taking Action to a whole new level.  Please come out and support their efforts.  Abuelita's Empanada truck will be in the bus loop, but please mind the zombies as you enter.  Can't wait to see you there!

                       

100 Kids Sign Up to Become Pen Pals!

RMS has proven, once again, that we're THE SCHOOL WITH HEART IN THE HEART OF WAYNE! This is epic! 100 kids have volunteered to help better the lives of others, and to make a global connection.

Waiting to register for Pen Pals & Popcorn 2017

The new crew is hard at work planning the HAUNTED HOUSE FUNDRAISER: 

MONDAY, OCT. 30th.  

Pen Pals planning the Haunted House

Collaborating on scenes for the Haunted House.

Ideas are popping!

Vampires disguised as students.

This is going to be MEGA!  Don't miss it.

We Are Battling Food Scarcity in Uganda: Buyanga School Farm Update

Headmaster Edward Bukye weeds one of the apple banana trees planted earlier this year

Radnor Pen Pal & Popcorn Club has had a little hiatus, but while we were focusing our energy on school and our own well-being, the new farm we initiated this year has been carefully tended by the students and faculty of the Buyanga Primary School under the supervision of organic farming expert Yusuf Wesonga.  Our haunted house fundraiser at Halloween enabled Buyanga Primary to plant 550 apple-banana trees, and the ground has been prepared for 4 acres of maize and other vegetables that will provide the school with the food they need to initiate a lunch program.

While the eastern region of Africa has been stricken with drought conditions that have led to food scarcity issues, Global Village Connect volunteer Michael Glotter worked alongside Yusuf Wesonga to teach the students how to create an irrigation system using plastic drink bottles. This has been a successful method and almost all of the banana crop has survived the initial months since planting.

Preparing the farm for maize and and crops to initiate a lunch program at Buyanga Primary School

      Now the school is preparing to develop the remaining 4 acres after some highly anticipated rains during the first week of March.  Our haunted house funds will cover the initial planting, but we will need to redouble our efforts to ensure that the school farm thrives and can generate a profit.  Making Buyanga Primary School self-sufficient is our goal, and we anticipate that as the lunch program evolves, school enrollment and retention rates will rise, much as they did for our first pen pals at the nearby Buppala Primary School.  Keeping kids well nourished and in school are the primary goals of our work in Uganda.  This is only possible because Radnor pen pals and our families and friends have recognized that a little bit of love and compassion goes a long way.  Kindly consider helping us help others by making a small donation through our partners at Global Village Connect.

TAKING ACTION AS GLOBAL CITIZENS

     I am bursting with pride and excitement to share this update from Michael Glotter, our Global Village Connect representative, who has been in Uganda helping to initiate the work on the garden Radnor pen pals have made possible.  Gang, YOU are agents of change, making a better life not only possible, but an absolute given for the thousands of students who will attend Buyanga Primary School for years to come.  This is living proof that sustainable solutions to food scarcity are so doable. Who would guess that creating a haunted house and a community bake sale could be the beginning of so much opportunity for so many students in a village so far away?  Thank you for being compassionate global citizens with hearts of gold. Let's do all we can to keep the love and good will growing.

Kindly consider a charitable gift this season. Share your bounty...
Visit www.GlobalVillageConnect.org and donate to our garden project.  Thank you!

RMS PEN PALS SKYPE WITH UGANDAN PEN PALS!

Radnor Pen Pals had the rare and special opportunity to Skype with a few of their pen pals in Uganda last Tuesday.  It's hard to put into words what it feels like to make this far-away connection come directly into our classroom.  In a word, it was THRILLING!

Seeing and hearing our pen pals somehow makes the connection so much more real.  Students prepared questions, and the Ugandan students were curious about our lives, as well.  When asked what they dream of being when they grow up, they responded that they wanted to become doctors and engineers and teachers.  Then each of our students came up one by one, introduced themselves and said what they dream of becoming.

    Our fundraising efforts this year have made it possible to begin the installation of a new garden at Buyanga Primary School.  Radnor Middle School pen pals have earned $2,500 from the haunted house and from a bake sale, pictured here.  Below are photos of the site selection and the beginning of the garden that will make it possible for every child at Buyanga to have lunch each day he or she attends school.  Our last school garden is going strong and sustaining the daily lunch at Buppala School, and soon, many more students will be able to rely on a healthy lunch every day.  RMS Pen Pals are changing the world! 

Working Together ~ We're Changing the World!

Behind the scenes

The Warehouse of Discarded Children turned out to be more than just a successful fundraiser...
it was a remarkable collaboration.  The actors were fully committed and they worked together like a true ensemble.  The power of this production was the teamwork and comraderie that the students demonstrated.  And they freaked a lot of people out, too!

Thank you to all our stellar volunteers: Joanne from GLOBAL VILLAGE CONNECT, Jack Sharples (RHS, '07), Joleen on make-up, Ian from Eastern U, the parents who helped out, and especially to ABUELITA'S EMPANADAS for your incredible contribution.

After it was all over, counting our profits was a whole other cause for celebration.  We raised $2000 from this event.  That's enough to build 4 acres of garden at Buyanga Primary School in Uganda!  

Join us at Pen Pal & Popcorn Club on Thursday where we will look at what a $2000 investment can yield in Uganda.  There will be lots of popcorn and plenty to celebrate.  We are truly making the world a healthier, more equitable place.  Proof of my philosophy: PEN PALS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!