TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, FREMONT:
The Three Cups of Tea program team gave a presentation to the women
of the Country Club of Washington Township Women’s Club (CCWTWC) at
St. James Episcopal Church.
This historic Fremont club has
been in operation since 1896. There were about 25 women
in attendance at the monthly meeting at the church.
The presentation was one of a
series of talks throughout Fremont about the book Three Cups of Tea
and the work that Greg Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute (CAI)
has been doing to build schools for children, especially girls, in
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
AAUW’s Jeanne Delp gave
some background on Greg Mortenson’s life and passed along information
about AAUW as well.
The women saw two videos about
both the Three Cups of Tea book and the CAI’s Pennies
for Peace program.
Sara Hinkel, AAUW member and chair
of the Pennies for Peace program, talked about the progress we’ve
made thus far in collecting pennies from elementary school children
in the Fremont and Newark Unified School Districts. She told
the charming story of one kindergartner who, after hearing about Greg
Mortenson’s mission, shouted enthusiastically: “
I’ll join!”
“While this isn’t a competition,”
said Sara, “we hope to raise $30,000 when Mortenson comes on
March 3 because that’s how much it costs to build one school.”
She passed along that we have collected some $14,000 to date.
Genevieve Angelides, Three Cups
of Tea chair, updated women’s club members on how the CAI
is doing today. “They built 10 schools last summer,”
she said, “five in Afghanistan and five in Pakistan.”
She also stated that because of the frequency of earthquakes in some
of the areas, the CAI and local communities were using prefab buildings
from China.
The program ended with some delicious
pumpkin pie and the CCWTWC was kind enough to present Genevieve with
a check for Pennies for Peace.
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