Helping Other Kids

This is an interview with my Mom.

What did your school do to raise money to help kids this year?
We did a "move-a-thon" to try to use new our track. We had people fill out forms to raise money to see how many laps we could do. I did 41 or 42 laps.
(Mom..."this was approx. 8 miles! the kids ran one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon")

The school raised a lot of money. Volkswagon the company donated 20,000 rmb. We were close to getting 100,000 rmb. This is about 15,000 dollars in the United Sates.

How did you spend the money?
We got to go on a field trip to a local market to buy things to go into a backpack for kids.

What did you put in the backpack?
We put in the backpack: hats and scarves, gloves, mittens, school supplies, a toy and a coat.

How many backpacks did you fill?
Everyone in the school filled about 1-3 backpacks.

Who did you give the backpacks to?
My grade gave our backpacks to some other third graders in a Chinese school.

Where was the school?
It was about a two hour drive.



What was different about the Chinese school than your school?
They got heat from a coal fire. We get heat from a heater vent.

Was it warm enough?
It was SO COLD...I couldn't feel my toes! Even by the fire. The reason it was so cold was because they had open doors. But I bet the Chinese kids were use to it.


What about the bathrooms? What were they like?
The bathroom was basically like a hole, a tunnel. The tunnel leads to a sewer. The bathroom is outside, and you basically just do your business in a hole. There is no toilet paper, bring your own toilet paper! They just don't use it, I'm pretty sure they just don't use it.

What did the class room look like? Was it colorful like yours?
No. There was a chalk board, only Chinese writing on the walls. They don't have bulletin boards, no posters with color.

What was the floor like?
There was no rug, and there was a lot of coal on the ground, to shovel into the fire. There ground was not clean it was really muddy.



What did you do there?
First thing we did was go to their classroom and play some math games that we brought. Then we ate fruit, kimbob, a Korean food, and cold chicken wings that the parents made and brought.

Then we played outside with a blanket and a ball. That is when my toes froze. I'll tell you that story later when I see you. You try not to let the ball off the blanket. It is a fun and simple game.


The last thing we did was give the kids their new backpacks. It was fun to actually get to give the backpacks to the kids at the Chinese school.

How the kids don't get a lot of the same kind of education that I do is what I will remember most about this day. When I found out they had to walk over a mile just to get to school I couldn't believe it. It takes them over an hour to get there and an hour to get home.