This article is provided courtesy of Stars & Stripes, which got its start as a newspaper for Union troops during the Civil War, and has been published continuously since 1942 in Europe and 1945 in the Pacific. Stripes reporters have been in the field with American soldiers, sailors and airmen in World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo, and are now on assignment in the Middle East.
Stars and Stripes has one of the widest distribution ranges of any newspaper in the world. Between the Pacific and European editions, Stars & Stripes services over 50 countries where there are bases, posts, service members, ships, or embassies.
Related Links:
Current Archive
Stars & Stripes Website
Sound off in our Discussion Boards
Have an opinion on the issues discussed in this article? Sound off.
Get Breaking Military News Alerts
|
|
|
|
|
Your Two Cents
Submit your stories, news items, or a benefits update -- and help Military.com bring the best, most important stories to your fellow servicemembers, veterans, and family members. Contribute here |
|
|
October 04, 2005
[Have an opinion about the issues discussed in this article?
Sound
off in our Discussion Boards.]
By Jennifer H. Svan
Stars and Stripes Pacific edition
MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan — Noah DeBonis donated a dictionary and “Brain Quest” trivia cards he's had since third grade.
Kristina Overton gave one of her favorite Harry Potter books, a lunch box and some stencils.
Amid applying to colleges, planning for prom and graduation, the Edgren High School seniors are taking time to help Gulf Coast students who lost everything, including basic school supplies and in some cases even their schools, in Hurricane Katrina.
The senior class and their sponsor, English teacher Laurie Kuntz, are working with two Louisiana educators to collect school materials for students displaced by the hurricane.
An Edgren teacher e-mailed Kuntz a letter posted on the Internet Sept. 7 from Brenda Nixon of Louisiana State University and Jean May-Brett of the Louisiana Department of Education. It was in response to the many inquiries they'd received on how to help schools and students affected by the tragedy.
“They have literally lost almost all of their possessions,” they wrote. “It's frightening for them and anything that can be done will help.”
“Since I'm the sponsor for the senior class,” Kuntz said, “I thought it would be a really worthwhile project for the senior class to undertake. They are trying to disseminate school materials to displaced kids, to schools that are rebuilding and to teachers who have nothing in their classrooms anymore.”
She corresponded with the Louisiana educators several times to learn what supplies are needed most. “They need book bags or backpacks, notebooks, paper, pens, rulers, calculators, folders, loose leafs, dictionaries … anything you carry in a backpack that we just take for granted.”
The materials can be new or used, she said.
“One of my classes,” Kuntz said, “[was] so inspired when I told them about this that they opened their backpacks and took all their new supplies out and donated them. They said, ‘We'll just buy new ones.'”
DeBonis and Overton are helping spread the word about the senior class project. DeBonis penned a recent editorial for the school newspaper comparing students to soldiers and the things they carry: “Soldiers carry bags of ammunition and rations to keep them alive ... Students' backpacks are stacked with paper and books, pens and pencils, calculators, rulers, the occasional highlighter and even a red pen or two. These supplies … help students in cases of unforeseen emergencies, such as pop quizzes or extemporaneous speeches.”
Kuntz already has collected several boxes of materials that she and the students plan to sort through and mail right away. The supplies will be shipped to Nixon at LSU, where a distribution center has been set up, according to the Louisiana educators' letter.
Kuntz said she anticipates postage will be expensive because the boxes can't be mailed through the Military Postal System. She plans to ask private organizations on base whether they could help with mailing costs. The drive, she said, will continue until there's no longer a need.
“The needs here are ongoing, especially now that Hurricane Rita has exacerbated the situation,” Nixon told Kuntz in an e-mail.
 Email
this page to friends RSS feed
©2005 Stars & Stripes. All opinions
expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily
reflect those of Military.com.
|
