Teacher Delivers Hope To Kosovo

Reed Intermediate School fifth grade teacher Karen King left last March 26 for Shala, Kosovo, to deliver supplies collected from the school’s annual Pencils for Peace charity drive.

In addition to collecting 29,000 pencils, students raised $15,000 along with school supplies including notebooks and backpacks.

Students raised funds by selling custom-designed pencils and bracelets made from materials provided by Curtis Packaging as well as appealing to local businesses for support.

The name of a Shala student was woven into each bracelet. The wearer wrote a letter to that student combating the language barrier through using a largely visual approach. If a student enjoyed playing sports, for example, they would include pictures of soccer balls or other activities to depict their athleticism.

The project began last spring after Ms King, inspired by the humanitarian efforts of Irish friend Paudi Powers, decided to help support a recently constructed Shala school facing such a dearth of supplies that entire 20-person classes had to share one pencil.

This year, Newtown Rotary provided Ms King with complimentary travel costs, through an account set up with Fleet Bank, to hand-deliver the supplies to Shala schoolchildren.

Armed with a video camera and laptop, Ms King plans to digitally record her experiences in Shala and transmit them to her students at Reed Intermediate.

Shortly before her departure, students involved in the Newtown Rotary-sponsored Interact Club, a community service organization, prepared a special farewell replete with plenty of hugs.

“We worked really hard [on Pencils for Peace],” said fifth grader Ryan Bienkowski. “We want to as much as we can to help [the Shala children].”

Ms King is set to return Monday, April 5.