Grassland Students Send Supplies to Afghanistan

Published April 1, 2010

Pencils, notebooks and erasers. They are objects many of us take for granted, but in places like Afghanistan, these basic tools of education are in short supply.

With that in mind, students at Grassland Middle and Grassland Elementary schools recently collected supplies to send to a school in Afghanistan. The effort began last semester when Grassland Middle School teacher Clarke Oldham received a letter from the father of one of his students.

"Lt. Col. Gary Herr told me he was stationed near a school that didn't have any supplies and wanted to know if there was anything we could do," said Oldham.

"So for the next three weeks I set up several boxes in my room and told the students to bring in as many school supplies as possible."

The result: three large boxes full of pencils, markers, notebooks, crayons and many other school supplies. Oldham shipped the boxes to Afghanistan, but it wasn't until Lt. Col. Herr returned home from his tour of duty in February that the students were able to see the impact they had made.

"Lt. Col. Herr came and spoke to our class and brought some photos of the Afghan students as they received the supplies," said Oldham. "The students here at Grassland were amazed to see the how happy the kids were. I think it's also important for them to understand they can make a real difference in other people's lives, even if they're thousands of miles away."