Catholic Herald Parenting™

	Keeping Faith

GERMANTOWN -- Water. It's something most people in the United States take for granted. But the staff and students at St. Boniface Elementary School in Germantown are learning the value of this abundant commodity by helping others who lack it.

	WELL DONE -- St. Boniface School students stand next to a model well they used to help call attention to their fund-raising effort, "Help Ghana Get Well." The Germantown Catholic school has raised nearly $7,000 for their sister parish in Ghana. (Photo by Sam Lucero)

At the end of last school year, as the current eighth graders were finishing seventh grade, choir director Shirley Karhoff, principal Sue Nygaard and pastor Fr. Bernie Sippel suggested the class help raise money for their sister parish, Sacred Heart in Bolgatanga, Ghana -- West Africa. The community needed to dig a well to bring fresh water to the area.

"All water in that country is polluted," Sippel said. "There is no blue water. There it is red, and if there is no well, that's what you drink and cook with, because the dust of the Sahara keeps blowing over and dropping onto the surface, and when it rains, it just washes it right into the water."

The kids loved the idea, and wasted no time in raising funds for this ambitious project. Previously, eighth graders had contributed gifts to the school -- a flagpole and a statue of an eagle stand as testament to past gifts -- but the $5,500 price tag for this venture was far and above what students had ever done.

"These kids took it upon themselves to raise money that they gave as a gift, so in that way it was very different," said Karhoff.

Over the summer, the youth donated money they earned from tasks such as mowing lawns and babysitting, as well as collecting money from organized fund raisers such as car washes and bake sales. By the time school resumed in the fall, they had netted about $4,700, according to Karhoff.

They had T-shirts made proclaiming their solidarity as a class, "Help Ghana 'Get Well.'"

The class also began to gain a new respect for a simple walk to the faucet for a glass of water.

"Once we found out about what the people in Ghana had to go through, we felt how lucky we are," said student Stephanie Adamski. "All we have to do is just turn on the water -- it comes right out of the sink. They have to walk a mile to get to a well, and carry buckets back. And they conserve it better than we do."

In addition, those must-haves like PlayStation and Nintendo were re-thought. Sr. Delores Theine, the eighth-grade teacher, recalled one student who had been diligently saving up for a popular video game and decided to donate the money to the project instead.

"Those kinds of stories just move you," Theine said.

Karhoff conceived the idea of recording a CD of the youth choir, an 84-member group involving children in grades four through eight, to further supplement the efforts of the 'Get Well' project. It also provided a way to deepen the involvement and interest of the entire school in a relationship with their sister parish.

"With One Voice -- St. Boniface Kids Choir Singing With the Angels" was recorded in the church in September 2002 with the help of Dave Pozorski, a parishioner who is an engineer with WTMJ radio. To date, the school has sold about half of the 1,000 CDs it produced.

Early on skeptics felt the fund-raising goal might be too lofty, but the children used their faith to find strength in each other working together to reach that goal. A visit last fall from Fr. Roger Aboteyuure, the pastor at Sacred Heart, helped inspire the children.

"With a group, you can do things you wouldn't normally be able to do. If you band together, it's going to be easier, and you can accomplish things you never thought of," said Troy Schoenbeck, one of the 18 eighth graders spearheading the project.

The group agreed that working together made the task more fun, even when a carwash was cut short by rain.

"It started to rain in the afternoon, but we still raised $831, and we stayed and played games together," laughed Mike Bodendorfer.

By November, the kids found out that the thermometer that had been tracking their progress had reached the top. While this may seem an end to the story, the children's unwaning enthusiasm led their response to be, "let's build another well!"

Presently, the money raised stands at $6,973.23, with $6,000 already sent to Aboteyuure to begin construction. Aboteyuure recently wrote the children to express his gratitude, promising, "any time the children will be drinking water they will be invoking God to bless you."

Theine's encouraged by the enthusiasm shown by the entire school. "I hear the fifth graders already saying, 'Wow -- I hope we get to do something that cool' and it really makes you feel good inside," she said.