Two Western NY communities help build Nicaraguan school |
On Board Online • September 24, 2012
By Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer
In a project led by married school principals, the students and staff in two western New York school districts have helped build a school for a rural Nicaraguan community.
Support from colleagues and students in the Honeoye Falls-Lima and Avon districts in Livingston County enabled principals Jeanine and Robert Lupicella to travel with their children to Las Minitas last December to help transform a tattered shed into a sturdy brick-and-mortar school.
The Lupicellas say building the school was an example of “service learning.”
“Our school motto talks about being citizens in a global society,” Rob Lupicella told On Board. He said the project was a way to put that motto into action.
Jeanine Lupicella heard about a request for help building a school in Las Manitas through a fellow SUNY-Geneseo alum who is among the founders of an economic development non-profit called the Enlace Project. (Enlace is a Spanish verb for “link.”)
Las Minitas had been awarded a teacher by the Nicaraguan government, the Lupicellas learned, but the only place available for lessons was a makeshift shed built of scrap wood and aluminum. It offered little protection from wind or rain and none of the equipment or materials typically available in an American classroom.
The structure was, Rob Lupicella said with acknowledged understatement, “inadequate.”
The Lupicellas’ students and colleagues launched a fundraising campaign they called “Nickels for Nicaragua,” which captured interest in both school communities.
“Kids want to help. It’s just part of their nature,” Jeanine said, adding, “This was really a huge community effort.”
Students and other volunteers collected spare change. Local fire departments gathered bottles and cans, and grocery stores set up collection points for people to contribute their bottle and can returns to the cause. One student contributed proceeds from her lemonade stand, and a fifth grade class sold t-shirts donated by a parent and hand-made decorative pins.
Rotary clubs in Avon and Geneseo each contributed $1,000, and faculty members wrote checks.
Nickels for Nicaragua ended up raising 230,000 nickels, or $11,500. That was enough to buy books, furniture and other supplies along with the bricks, concrete and other construction materials for the building.
The Lupicellas took time off to travel to Las Minitas in December and February. Rob used vacation, while Jeanine took an unpaid leave. That helped the Honeoye Falls-Lima district balance its budget and save an administrative job last year. Colleagues including Avon Superintendent Bruce Amey covered their administrative duties while they were away.
A slideshow on the Avon website (http://goo.gl/kl8gd) provides an illustrated narrative of the construction project.
Jeanine has shared lessons about Nicaraguan culture with children in her district’s Spanish classes, and she points to the project as a tangible example sharing the gift of education with children far beyond their own community.
“I kept saying to the students: ‘This is a school you helped build. We could not have bought any of these bricks without your help,’” Jeanine said.
Now, the Lupicellas are planning a new campaign to help residents in the mountain town of El Guyabo build a school. But this time, Jeanine said, they will be cautious about bringing their schools into the effort.
“It’s become a personal mission for my family, and I don’t want the school to feel responsible for our mission,” she said. “We’re making it known that we are doing this, and we will wait to hear if there are students who want to be a part of it.”