Francie Markham, retired Dreher High School English teacher and former PDS coordinator there, has chosen Hartzell High School and the Old Mutare Mission Centre in Zimbabwe as her next focus in life. After four trips there, she feels this community has become her “home away from home.” Old Mutare consists of a Methodist church, a primary school, an orphanage (See FOSA for Fairfield on the web), a hospital, farms, houses, and Hartzell High School. With the severe hard times economically in Zimbabwe, this community’s needs have resulted in a truck container being shipped there in November and another this coming spring. Francie will follow the container and be there again in January or February, 2008.
When Francie taught at Dreher, USC sponsored a mini-grant where she coordinated penpals and a culture box exchange with Hartzell High and Dreher students. Seeds like this grant yielded many other dreams and connections there, the latest being the truck container. Many items are needed there. She encourages you to get your students involved. Recently Round Top Elementary School teacher Sandy Cromer encouraged her kindergarteners to collect pencils for Old Mutare, and they collected over 1,000; these are leaving in the November container.
Old Mutare’s / Hartzell’s Latest List/ New or Used Goods
Francie Markham
britlit@sc.rr.com
803-771-9988 home
Pencils / pens / file folders / notebook paper
Cooking oil, dried beans like butter beans or black-eyed peas, rice, peanut butter,
and sugar
Flashlights with extra batteries
Small battery-operated lanterns with extra batteries
Flashlights that recharge with a lever or a crank on the side – no batteries
Vegetable seeds
New or used gardening tools / gardening gloves / gardening hats /wire cutters
Sturdy kick balls with hand pumps
Soccer balls, basketballs
Stopwatches
Overhead projectors
Soap ( laundry, bath, and liquid)
Blankets, single sheets, single comforters, pillowcases
Anti-bacterial wipes / cleaner
Black or white pastors’ robes / Black graduation robes
Towels (new or used) and black fabric for handmade sanitary pads
Test tube brushes
Wind up ticker timers
Folding chairs
Any items can be new or used. They go to the Old Mutare Mission Centre, a 110 year-old Methodist mission community with a church, hospital, primary school with a kindergarten, an orphanage, dormitories, a hospital, houses, and farms. The creche (4K and 5K) have few materials or toys for 70 children. There are 3,000 people in this community.
Zimbabwe presently has 7000 % inflation this year. Also, hardly any goods are on the shelves, even if one could afford them. This is a dire circumstance.
Monetary contributions (checks) may be made out to Trenholm Road UMC / 3401 Trenholm Rd. / Columbia, SC 29204 / Attention: Steve Barden. The “For” box should say Zimbabwe Project.
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