Children collect supplies for students in Ghana

Despite the rain Wednesday, students gathered outside the Lindenhurst Early Childhood Center, eagerly watching officials and a nearby trailer filled with boxes. Several children gripped a painted flag of Ghana, made out of their own handprints, while another group held up a sign bearing their school name and the slogan, "One Village of Children Helping Another."

They were there to send off a massive batch of school materials to Africa, where it will benefit children at The International Community School in Kumasi, Ghana.

"You guys made this happen," center director Frank Davis told the wide-eyed bunch. "It's going all the way across the ocean to a different country. You should be so proud of yourselves."

In just over a month's time, the school collected nearly 60,000 pounds of books and other school supplies. While the collection began through the Lindenhurst childhood center, it quickly spun into a community-wide effort.

The boxes, which contain books, crayons, clothes, shoes and computers, will be shipped by freighter to Africa next week. When the materials arrive, sometime in July, a group of Chicago suburban educators will be there to meet it.

Carol Petrusha, a teacher at Betsy Ross School in Prospect Heights, has spent the past few summers in Ghana tutoring teachers in the art of Western-style education. She is returning again this summer, with several others from the Chicago area, to spend another six-week stint in Ghana.

She connected with the International Community School after meeting its director, Charles Yeboah, who makes frequent trips to the United States. Inspired by his willingness to pay teachers' salaries out of his own pocket and stories about meager school conditions in Africa, Petrusha decided to help out.

Many Ghanian teachers would like to receive schooling in the United States, Petrusha said, but are unable because of massive amounts of red tape. She added that good teachers are hard to come by in Africa because the wages are so low. Many teachers live in poverty.

"The system is so corrupt," said fellow Betsy Ross teacher Margaret Hulligan, who has also taught at the Ghana school. "Teachers have second jobs (to make money) and go sell stuff on the street while kids copy notes off the board. There are so many problems, and it's because they're faced with so many political and environmental and social issues."

The 180-student International Community School is located in a building the size of a house. Classrooms the size of a bedroom are used to hold more than 25 students at a time. Internet use is not possible because there are no phone lines in the facility. Crayons, markers and balloons are objects of admiration, not something commonly seen.

Hulligan said her experience in Africa was an eye-opening one.

"I was kind of embarrassed for what I expected when I got back," she said, referring to electricity and running water here in America. "When you make a little girl's day by giving her 35 cents ... It just changes your life. That money is more than she would make in an entire week. You just realize how much we don't need that we think we need. I wish everyone could have that experience. Hopefully these kids in Lindenhurst will experience a little bit of that."