East Brunswick students help African village get clean water

by Gene Racz on Jun 1st | Email

Students of Linda Rondinelli's 8th grade class at St. Bart's Church in East Brunswick raised $5,000 for a charity that will dig a well for a town in Ethiopia. (Alexander Cole/MyCentralJersey)

They made a pledge to give up their Christmas presents and their birthday gifts — asking instead that family and friends make donations to charity, with the money being used to build a well for people they never met in a village they never saw in Ethiopia.

As part of their confirmation service requirement at St. Bartholomew's Church in East Brunswick, 19 eighth-graders vowed to try their hardest to meet the goal of $5,000 that would enable the 501(c)(3) organization "Charity: Water" to build the well.

The students were all members of the "Called to Serve" class under the guidance of Linda Rondinelli, a volunteer teacher in St. Bart's religious education program.

"As part of their confirmation, they have to perform a certain number of hours of service," said Rondinelli. "I had been teaching them for three years in a row, and I had an idea that when they got to the eighth grade we would work on something big together for the service project.

"I like the students to pick the project, and at the beginning of the year we looked at different possibilities and they really liked the water project."

"Charity: Water" is a New York City-based nonprofit organization with a stated mission of bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. One of the "Sponsor Projects" the organization makes available to potential donors is that, for $5,000, it can help build a freshwater well in a village.

The challenge for prospective donors is that "Charity: Water" asks that the entire sum be raised before it picks the spot and sets the project in motion. The charity has identified villages around the world most in need of clean water and will provide resources to construct the well using the local community's help.

To help reach their fund raising goal, the students at St. Bart's also sold handmade free-standing angels they made out of wood and paper at Christmas and sold calendars during Advent. The class kept any angels that weren't sold and took them over to Sunrise Senior Living, where they handed them out while spending some time with residents there.

The students began their fund-raising efforts last October and reached their goal this past January. Along with their donors, they are now awaiting word from "Charity: Water" regarding where their well will be drilled.

They will be sent GPS coordinates, photos and information about the project.

"Our project made me appreciate what I have and taught me to become more aware," said David Decker, one of the St. Bart's students. "Right now I can't visualize how much of an impact we're going to have — 500 people, 20 years of fresh water. I also can't imagine life without fresh water — I'm excited for what this will mean to the village we're helping."

Rondinelli said she didn't want the project to simply be about raising money, so she had her students research water availability around the world. She wanted them to be educated about the issue so they could be advocates of it. She had them write two essays — one going into the project and one after they achieved their goal.

She shared some of the comments from some of her students' second essays.

Robert Frey wrote that he "felt pride and joy" in helping the less fortunate while Rickey Moore wrote that it was a chance "to show people in need that other people in the world care about them and want to help them."

Gillian Blewett wrote that she was "shocked to learn that 1 in 6 people do not have access to clean water" while Ruthie Ofrasio wrote that she learned "when you help someone, you get so much out of it — sometimes more out of it than the person who is being helped."

Jonathan Fitzgerald wrote that he "learned the power of giving and being compassionate."

"This project was meant to give them a base throughout their lives on how service can affect others as well as themselves," said Rondinelli. "They understand that they have also completely benefited from this — along with those people in the village who will be able to get clean water from their new well."

The students will be confirmed this fall.