Kidsday: Good Reason2Smile

Hujambo! This means hello in Swahili. Seven years ago a Kenyan woman named Christine had a dream to start a school in Kenya for children in need. This school, Jambo Jipya, would provide uniforms, food and an education for many who could not afford them otherwise. In 2007, Keela Dates, a woman from Lake Placid, N.Y., visited the school before beginning her career as a teacher. She felt touched by this school, its staff and students and wanted to help. Instead of going back to the states to begin her teaching career, she created a program called Reason2Smile.

Reason2Smile is a nonprofit organization that supports Christine's dream and even went above and beyond it. Now, not only is each student given an education, food and uniforms; Reason2Smile also has provided concrete buildings for the students to learn in, rather than the original mudhuts. Dates is very happy about the organization and is hoping to continue expanding it so that others can benefit from it!

This past summer, our teacher Debbie Cain was interested in finding penpals for us to write to in our sixth-grade writing classes. Mrs. Cain found teachers from four different countries -- Italy, Australia, South Korea and Kenya, the country that Keela Dates is involved with.

Around the same time, Donna Rosenblum, a Merrick resident and a member of the board of directors for Reason2Smile, asked Mrs. Cain if she would be interested in having Dates visit Chatterton Elementary School in Merrick, to speak to the sixth grade and spread the word of her great work in Kenya. Mrs. Cain thought this would be a great idea . . . turns out she was right!

The sixth-grade students started a Math-a-Thon to raise money for the Jambo Jipya school after Dates visited them and shared the stories of some special students in Kenya. We were touched by her stories of these kids and wanted to do whatever we could to help. We hope to raise more than $500 to donate to Reason2Smile by the end of this year.

You can help out too by checking out Reason2Smile.org or its Facebook and Twitter pages to get more information. One way you can help is by sponsoring a child at the school. With support of only 50 cents a day, a child can to go to school, get a uniform and eat two meals per day. Do you realize that is the amount of money that probably falls out of your pocket every day without you knowing? You may as well support a good cause with that loose change! Why not? It will give a lot of kids a reason to smile!