A school effort that began with a book has built a school in Liberia.

Reed teachers Valerie Pagano-Hepburn, Lil Martenson, Patrice DiVanno, and Karen King visited Newtown Middle School on Friday, June 5, to share the news with former Reed students, who gathered into the NMS’s auditorium during two assemblies.

“It’s so exciting. You’re going to be blown away,” said Ms Pagano-Hepburn to her former students before Ms King shared the story of how the school came to be built.

Before Newtown’s fifth grade was moved to Reed Intermediate School, reading The Pushcart Wars by Jean Merrill was part of the curriculum at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The book tells the fictional story of a clash between pushcart vendors in New York City and the increasing truck traffic that competed for space.

In 2007, Ms Pagano-Hepburn introduced it to her sixth grade students at Reed, and the students worked to create their own “pushcarts” filled with selected foods and other items, to sell the items while competing, like in the book. That year and for the next few years, the money raised went to charities.

After being inspired by a letter to the editor in a May 2013 edition of The Newtown Bee from a student at Kamiak High School in Mukilteo, Wash., the 2013 Pushcart Warriors donated their $2,800 to build a well through the Well Done Organization.

The $2,800 was more than had ever been raised during a Pushcart Day, according to Ms King, at Reed.

Ms King was tasked that summer with finding the right school for the well. While traveling, Ms King ended up at New Life Christian Academy, located in Paynesville, a suburb of Monrovia, Liberia.

“As soon as I go to the school… I saw how in need it was,” said Ms King.

The school building was made of sticks, mud, branches. It had leaks, mud, no desks, and 300 students.

“They didn’t have a clean water drinking well and they didn’t have latrines, no bathrooms,” Ms King said. Adding later, “As soon as I saw the name ‘New Life’ I knew it was the school that we wanted to help.”

When the well was later completed, a sign was created that read, “This well is dedicated to the memory of the 26 Sandy Hook School angels, given by Reed Intermediate School, Newtown, Connecticut, USA, 2012-2013. Kindness Matters. Love Wins.”

2014’s Pushcart Wars

When Ms King asked school leaders at New Life Christian Academy in 2013 what they would want, “all they said was a well,” Ms King told the students at NMS.

But the next round of Pushcart Warriors did not stop there.

After learning what the class before them had done, the 2014 Pushcart Warriors brainstormed ideas. A contact at Scholastic Publishing had heard about Reed’s efforts and offered to donate 600 to 1,000 nonfiction books for New Life Christian Academy, and as Ms King said at the time, HEARTT, an NGO, offered to ship the books. The donation led to the idea of building a library or a school building, an idea that was thought to be too expensive at first.

“Then I was contacted by somebody who doesn’t want to be named,” Ms King said on Friday.

The anonymous couple challenged Reed’s 2014 Pushcart Warriors to raise more than $3,000, and if they could, the donors said they would add $22,000 to the cause to make building a school possible.

The warriors raised more than $5,560.

“The year that you did Pushcart Day was the most amazing Pushcart Day I have ever seen,” Ms King said, smiling, adding that the money was raised by asking everyone at the school to find every nickel, dime, and quarter they had for the cause.

“I was on the phone that night with the donor and the check was in the mail that night,” said Ms King. “He and his wife were so proud of you and so proud to be your partner in this. And together with their $22,000 we again brought new life.”

Before Ms King shared photos of the new school building for New Life Christian Academy, she also told students about the crisis Liberia suffered while the school was being built.

Ebola spread throughout Liberia last summer, halting progress on the school by August.

“The disease was so contagious and so deadly that there were no schools that opened this past September,” said Ms King. “Schools remained close in Liberia. They didn’t want children coming to the same rooms to spread the disease. Most stores closed. Most businesses closed. Schools closed. It was a very, very, sad time in Liberia.”

About a month ago, Ms King said the schools opened for the first time in the school year after the country was determined to be Ebola-free.

“And New Life Christian Academy opened for the first time this school year,” said Ms King. “I want you to remember what it looked like. Now, this is what you did.”

Ms King then presented photos of the new building.

“Whoa!” a number of the students said at once.

The students watched as more photos of the “real school” the “center of the community” were shared.

The new building has rooms, windows, cement floors, desks, and books.

“There was enough money left over to give them what they really need…,” Ms King said, before showing another photo. “A latrine. They got four toilets so the students can have the dignity of going to school for their education and not have to focus on things like their daily needs.”

Ms King told the students they changed the lives of the New Life Christian Academy students.

“This change will go on for many generations because of something that happened in your class, in your classroom,” Ms King said. “You can be very, very proud of yourself. I am bursting with pride.”