EMU students Valerie Showalter and Derrick Charles check the school kits that were brought forward during the chapel service Nov. 12. Photo by Jim Bishop
They’re in the bag, drawstring bags, that is.
More than 200, possibly upwards to 300, school kits put together by students, faculty and staff at EMU will find their way to the Mennonite Central Committee donation center in Hinton, Va., and from there to young recipients around the world.
MCC will distribute the bags of school supplies to children living in refugee camps, in situations of ongoing conflict or to youngsters in areas that have experienced a natural disaster.
"Student leaders decided to make this project a focused offering for the EMU campus during this Thanksgiving season," said Deanna F. Durham, community learning coordinator at EMU. "All members of the campus community and beyond were invited to join in this effort."
Students, faculty and staff were challenged to pick up one or more fabric bag at various locations around campus the week of Nov. 8-12 and to fill them with four spiral notebooks or notebooks with perforations, four unsharpened No. 2 pencils, one flexible plastic ruler, one box of colored pencils and one large pencil eraser. Completed kits were collected at various locations around campus.
People brought their filled bags forward at the close of the Nov. 12 chapel service while "Shekinah," an 11-member women’s ensemble, sang. EMU campus pastor Brian Martin Burkholder led a prayer of blessing for the school kits.
"I’m both surprised and pleased with the response from students and faculty to this project," said Valerie L. Showalter, an EMU junior and a pastoral assistant with campus ministries. She said the drive will continue through Friday, Nov. 19, in hopes of reaching a goal of 300 kits.
Each year, MCC sends school kits for children in places such as Belize, Bosnia, Burundi, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Liberia, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine and to poorly-funded schools in Canada and the United States. In 2002, MCC distributed more than 100,000 kits.