Port Chester Middle School Student Donates Prize Money to Impoverished Kids in Ethiopia

A student who won a student video competition has donated his $150 prize to a foundation that helps impoverished children in Ethiopia.

Jomar Arias, a seventh-grader, created a video about world hunger and his was selected the winner out of 80 student submissions on philanthropic or humanitarian issues. Click here to check out his video.

Allison Silverman’s Family & Social Consumer Science classes sold handmade coasters, scarves and journals to raise prize money that was awarded to the competition winner. They made all of these products out of up-cycled and green materials.

Arias donated the entire prize to the non-profit organization The Lelt Foundation, which has a program in an impoverished school in Ethiopia that supplies nutritional and educational support to severely malnourished children. This school is called Repi School.

Arias and Silverman encouraged their entire class to become involved in philanthropic outreach, and in March, Port Chester and Repi became sister schools. They exchanged letters and PCMS sent school supplies and handmade toys to Ethiopia.

Most of the kids at Repi School had never received toys or crayons before. They immediately created drawings and letters for their new friends in Port Chester.

The Port Chester students continued to raise funds and awareness for the children of Repi School. On Fridays, Port Chester 8th graders made healthy lunches to sell to the teachers, and for Mother’s Day 7th graders handmade jewelry and home furnishings out of recycled materials.

All profits from the sales went to the Lelt Foundation’s Repi School Sponsorship Fund.

There was also an essay contest in which the winner was be able to select a child of their choice from the Repi School Sponsorship Program with monies raised by awareness projects from Silverman’s class. The sponsored child will receive nutritional support, tutoring, computer training, adequate shelter, basic health services, psychosocial and trauma counseling, and encourage higher education through the Lelt Foundation.