Students donate school supplies for Iraqi kids
April 13, 2006
KOKOMO, Ind.—Dozens of school supply kits compiled in March by IU Kokomo students are traveling to Iraq, where U.S. soldiers and Iraqi security personnel will distribute them to local children.
Students in the Division of Education, as well as members of the campus’ Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) team, gathered the pencils, notebooks, and other basic educational tools, and packaged them for Operation Iraqi Children. Founded by actor Gary Sinise and author Laura Hillenbrand in 2004, the grassroots program transports the kits to Iraq, and provides them to U.S. and local security forces.
“As future teachers, education students understand that learning can’t happen in chaos and without the proper tools,” said Assistant Professor of Education Shirley Aamidor. “They have been eager to support this effort, as a way of contributing to Iraq’s future through the education of its children.”
In past years, SIFE has sent educational supplies to schools in Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Ukraine, and the Republic of Georgia. Partnering with the education students for Operation Iraqi Children made a good fit with SIFE’s mission of community service and outreach, according to SIFE President Brooke Mills of Bringhurst.
Posing with school supply kits they helped put together are, from left, Tina Frye of Bunker Hill, Shaun Barker of Kokomo, Heather Haggard of Rossville, Christy McKeever of Kokomo and Elizabeth Hall of Michigantown. Representing Students In Free Enterprise, Barker and McKeever are both majoring in management. The other students are education majors.
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