Turning Bake Sales into Backpacks

Euclid, Ohio-- It began with a bake sale, two to be exact. Euclid High School Senior Mary-Kate Kendel and Guidance Counselor Susan Turner baked for days in preparation for the EHS Trick-Or-Treat event and parent-teacher conferences last October. Their goal was to raise money for the AJC Children’s Foundation backpack program that supplies impoverished students in Honduras with backpacks filled with school supplies.  Kendel and Turner sold out of their baked goods both nights and raised $150, which supplied six Honduran children with backpacks.

It didn’t stop there. Prior to the bake sale, Mary-Kate had been using her monthly allowance to support a Honduran child named Anthony Jose through the AJC Children’s Foundation.  The opportunity of a lifetime came for Mary-Kate through the crowd-funding website gofundme.com.  Thanks to family, friends, and Euclid City Schools’ staff members Mary-Kate raised $1,100 toward a trip to Honduras to meet her sponsor child Anthony Jose.

Fast forward to April, and it was off to San Pedro Sula, Honduras for Miss Kendel. “One can imagine what it is like, but until you are actually there and see the houses, the trash on the sides of the road, and see children begging in busy traffic, you immediately are given a reality check,” says Kendel.  Her trip included 6:00 a.m. wake up calls to walk the boys to and from school and afternoons full of helping with homework, projects, and playing soccer. Mary-Kate stayed in the guesthouse at the AHLE facility; a facility that includes eight buildings with dormitories to lodge up to 80 boys. For Kendel the experience was life changing, “I was really able to see how much I truly take for granted and what things some people don't have, and may never have access to.”

Mary-Kate is back home in Euclid, Ohio and preparing to graduate in June.  Despite all the exciting end of the year events for this EHS senior, the highlight of her year was her trip to Honduras, “these boys are there for life, but now they are forever a part of my life, and I will never forget them.”

In the fall, Mary-Kate will be attending the University of Mount Union.

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Volume 6, Issue 6, Posted 1:15 PM, 05.31.2015