Rachael Yohai, a Los Alamitos High School student, is reaching out to assist kids in Africa with their education and desire to learn while earning the Girl Scout’s highest honor.
Yohai headed up a week-long pen drive at McAuliffe Middle School the week of March 8-12, 2010. With the support of the McAuliffe students, she hopes to collect and send over 12,000 pens to three countries in Africa. Adecco Employment Services has pledged to cover the shipping costs.
The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest award that a Girl Scout 14-18 may earn. Someone once described the Girl Scout Gold Award as being “what you really want to be remembered for” in Girl Scouting.
Upon hearing that kids in Africa beg for pens, Yohai knew she had to help.
Along with rallying the support of her alma mater Middle School student body,
Yohai will be eliciting the support of local businesses to collect used and new pens of every type, color, size and shape.
She will be working with an organization she volunteers for called Pens For Kids to get the all the pens collected to Africa.
Pens for Kids International, Inc. is a Long Beach based, non-profit organization whose goal is to get pens to school children in Africa and other third world countries. Based exclusively on volunteer work, Pens For Kids has no paid employees and relies solely on donations of pens and monetary contributions for shipping charges.
Pens For Kids was founded by avid traveler Linda Schaffer after a life-changing trip to Kenya and Tanzania. For the trip, Schaffer packed candy for local children as she usually did, but found that everywhere she went the kids she met asked for pens instead. Since that trip, Pens for Kids has sent more than 100,000 pens to school children in Africa, Mexico, Nicaragua and, most recently, Haiti.
“Although education is paid for by most African governments, the uncovered costs of uniforms and school supplies are huge obstacles to overcome for families whose average income is only $2 a day,” said Linda Schaffer, Executive Director of Pens for Kids International, Inc.
“In primitive cultures where herds of livestock are tended by children as young as 6 years old, pens that dry out quickly under the relentless equatorial sun are big investments,” she said.
All pens and shipping donations can be sent to:
Pens For Kids International, Inc.
Attn: Linda Schaffer
2225 Josie Ave., Long Beach, CA 90815
pensforkids@yahoo.com
Yohai encourages groups and individuals to start their own Pens For Kids collection projects.
“For something so small and available to make such a difference in kids lives is amazing. How many of us don’t have 10 or 20 extra pens sitting in a kitchen drawer or in the bottom of a purse?” she asked.
