KIDS HELPING KIDS IN HAITI

The Professor

Today's post features a guest blogger of sorts -- my son, known here as The Professor.  His school's French classes are endeavoring to help kids in Haiti who are victims of a form of child slavery, known as restavek, through the Jean-Robert Cadet Restavek Organization, started by a local resident and former child slave.  The classes are sponsoring a group of children who will get the opportunity to attend school for the first time.  To do so, they need to raise $5,000 to $6,000 to cover the academic fees.  In addition to monetary donations, the kids are also collecting school supplies, clothing, shoes, and other essentials that the kids will need.  My son is very passionate about this project, just as he was when he attempted to raise money for Invisible Children last year.  He's going to tell you a little about this project and then I have some details on how you can help if you'd like.

From The Professor:

The purpose of this project is to raise money for children in Haiti so they'll be able to go to school and buy the many things that we have but they do not.  In other words, it's all about helping those less fortunate.  I feel that this project is important because it's helping kids who really need it and it can have a positive impact because the children in Haiti will have a chance to go to school, get nutritious food, and have a future.

I care about this project because I think that children in Haiti deserve a better lifestyle than they currently have.  The life of these children right now is dreadful, they are forced to work like animals and are treated like slaves.  Kids in restavek are pretty much servants to a family.  They get up before everyone else, do the cooking, the cleaning, they're often hungry because they don't get good food, and it's not unusual for them to be abused.  They don't have a fraction of the stuff we have and without an education they don't have a chance to make their lives better.  Please make a donation so that we can help provide these kids with clothing, blankets, school supplies, shoes, and, most important, an education.  Thank you!


The Professor's French teacher has created the From Loveland to Haiti:  French Students Providing Hope blog.  There you'll find information on the community service project, as well as regular updates.  If you'd like to help with a monetary donation, you can do so through me (contact me at josherpoodle @gmail.com for my address) or a check can be made payable to Loveland City Schools with LMS French Class for Haiti in the memo line and mailed to:

Loveland Middle School

Attn:  French Class for Haiti Fundraiser

801 South Lebanon Road

Loveland, Ohio  45140

All the kids are working very hard doing extra chores for money, organizing bake and craft sales, and many have plans for taking a donation box around on Halloween to solicit donations while trick-or-treating.  It melts my cold, cynical heart to see kids helping kids in this way.  If you're interested in just who the Professor's school is helping, you can view their pictures here.  Seeing these sweet kids, so much like my own but living such different lives, makes me all the more determined to help my son help them to succeed.  

Even if you don't wish to donate, please check out the links below for more information on the kids of Haiti.  Thank you!

 * From Loveland to Haiti:  French Students Providing Hope blog

* The Jean R. Cadet Restavek Organization

* "Painful Plight of Haiti's 'Restavec' Children" - Article by CNN.

*  "Haiti Restavek Tradition Called Child Slavery - Article by Reuters.

* "Loveland Students to Help Peers in Haiti" - Article in the local newspaper, The Loveland Herald.

YARN ALONG

Wednesdays over at the Small Things blog is Yarn Along day, where knitters and crocheters share what bit of needle goodness they're working on and what they're reading. Time for this week's installment.

Last week I had just started on my first (person) sweater, the well known February Baby Sweater by Elizabeth Zimmermann.  I was doing fine until I got to the sleeves and then her pithy directions stopped me cold.  I had feared I wasn't quite up to making a sweater from a pattern that took up less than a page of text.  Turns out I'm not the only one who got confused at this point in the pattern and a Google search turned up life-saving tips at Ruthless Knitting.   Her "if I had it to do over again, this is what I'd do" tips made it very easy and once I understood how the whole wooly puzzle went together, it all made sense.  I was actually feeling quite proud of my little pink sweater...until I ran out of yarn.  Turns out three ounces of what Zimmermann called baby yarn is not the same as my three ounces of baby yarn.  I quickly cast on with some basic Caron yarn I had in my basket and the result was a cute little off-white sweater.  I wish I  had a real baby somewhere to try it on to see how it actually fits...

This week I continue with my super secret Easter project (shhhhhh!).  In addition, I'm continuing to work on an afghan I started for Project Linus about nine months ago.  At the time I was a new knitter and this basic afghan from the Project Linus website was just my style.  (It's a row of knit, a row of purl, and a row of pattern.  You can find the free pattern here.)  Unfortunately my knitting skills improved before I finished the afghan and now I find it utterly boring.  I pull it out now and then when I want a little mindless knitting.  I hope to finish it before the one year anniversary...

For reading I have The Private Life of the Cat Who...:  Tales of Koko and Yum Yum by Lilian Jackson Braun.  I'm a big fan of all The Cat Who... mysteries and this little volume is written as if it's from the journals of James Qwilleran, the main character and pseudo-detective in her series.  I've read all of the mysteries and, in fact, now always have one of her audio books from the library on my iPod for dog-walking and long solitary car rides.  As with Agatha Christie reading, I've found that once you get a dozen or so under your belt the stories start to run together and often you can reread without exactly remembering whodunit.

Anyone else reading something good this week?


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