Here at Tamarac we were given an opportunity to reach out, child to child, to help restock a school in Galle, Sri Lanka. Galle is a seaport on the island of Sri Lanka and was one of the hardest hit. They lost their homes, their school, their hospital and about 7,000 of the 84,000 citizens of their town did not survive the wave hitting their shore.

Through our connections with the Peace Pagoda in Grafton, we heard about a relief project being organized through the Peace Pagoda in Galle. The one in Galle is new to the series of peace pagodas around the world and was set to be dedicated in February. The people who were traveling there recognized that there was a greater need than a ceremony and decided that they’d carry in needed supplies. The teachers and students in Galle needed cloth book bags filled with very basic supplies, such as pencils, erasers, pads of paper, colored pencils and pencil sharpeners.

Mrs. Myers’ class took on the task of organizing the drive and Mr. Share’s, Mrs. Tarricone’s, Mrs. Riley’s, Mrs. Hamm’s, Mrs. Eldred’s, Mrs. Kralovic’s, Mrs. Israel’s and Mrs. Becker’s Spanish students banded together to work on the tasks. Parents and teachers sewed the bags, students made blank paper and looseleaf paper books, students wrote letters of support and caring, some made large stickers, others brought in supplies from home, some stuffed the bags with the supplies, some boxed them and kept count and in the end we filled 151 bags that were flown with relief workers to Sri Lanka on Valentine’s Day.

You can visit: http://peacepagoda.org/galle.html to see pictures of the destruction and read more about the book bag project. Several other local area schools worked on this project as well. We are hopeful that they’ll be able to post pictures of the children receiving our bags of hope in the coming weeks. We learned that the Galle Peace Pagoda is being used as the school and to house relief workers from around the world.

What did our children learn from this project? Besides the obvious connections to geography, ocean study, math, reading and writing there were much more subtle, character building ideas that crept into this project. Here’s a sample from some students’ Reflection Journals:

• When I filled my bag I felt empathy, because I care for you.

• When I filled my bag I felt happy because I was giving people things they really needed. The next time I hear about someone in need I will try to help them because they need help and I feel good when I do it! I feel relieved that they can finally feel a little better. They can go to school too. We made 151 bags so 151 bags and more kids can have school bags.