February 9, 2012
Bucks County Herald
Page B5 (17)
SCHOOLS
Service project leads to new friendship
Frenchtown preschool collects clothes for Sioux children in South Dakota
A service project marking Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr's birthday in
January has helped forge a personal
connection between two preschools:
Secret Garden Montessori in
Frenchtown, N.J., and the FACE
Preschool at Little Wound School,
located on an Oglala Lakota Sioux
reservation in South Dakota.
The Pine Ridge Reservation,
recently featured on ABC’s “20/20,”
has been identified as the poorest
reservation in the United States.
The unemployment rate is 80 percent, and more than 60 percent of the
children live below the federal
poverty level. The infant mortality
rate is five times the national average.
When Parent Council coordinator
Sarah Ruppert wanted to know what
her son's little school could do to
help children on the reservation, she
picked up the phone and called the
preschool teacher at FACE personally to find out.
The reservation teacher reported:
"It's about 2 degrees with the windchill today, and some of my kids
came to school wearing spring jackets." Besides warm coats, she said,
basics like new socks & underwear
would be much appreciated by the
ten students in her class.
From left, Mina Trueman, 4, of Milford, N.J.; Margot Kunzmann, 4,
of Frenchtown, N.J.; and Rayna Einhorn, 5, of Frenchtown, N.J., pack
socks and underwear.
The 17 families of Secret Garden
responded with an outpouring of
support, collecting 59 pairs of underwear, 55 pairs of socks and nine winter coats in addition to a large box of
arts and crafts supplies and a donation of toothbrushes. In addition to
helping fill the donation box during
the week of Martin Luther King Day
and packing up the materials for
mailing, the children made cards for
the FACE preschoolers and are looking forward to establishing a penpal
relationship. They have also been
learning about the history and culture of the Lakota Sioux and their
own local tribe, the Lenape.
Community service is an ongo-
From left, Kyle Nungester, 4, of Milford, N.J.; Addison Lenkey, 4, of
Frenchtown, N.J.; and Liam Wilde, 6, of Pittstown, N.J., pack coats.
ing feature of the curriculum at
Secret Garden Montessori, a nonprofit school serving ages 3 to 6.
Besides their newly-formed relationship with the FACE preschool,
the students fill a red wagon with
donations to the Frenchtown Food
Pantry once a month, and in
December visited a local assistedliving home to sing and distribute
holiday cookie trays and handmade
cards to the residents.