Tuesday, July 31, 2007
- Tammy Cunningham
Almost eighteen years ago Noel and Tammy had a concern for young students in the school system learning about poverty outside of their community.
Noel had grown up in Ireland and remembers raising money for the babies in the Congo, the campaign, “a penny for the black babies”. He remembers proudly taking up a collection at home and taking it to school. Tammy had lost her only child in a car accident in late 1982, and upon meeting Noel committed herself to children’s charities. A brainstorm hit them. They wondered what it would take to buy a breakfast for a child in a shelter. They called Jim White with Volunteers of America, and learned with other donations, a quarter was all it took to help a child have a nutritious breakfast.
So off they went approaching schools, principals, superintendents. The empowered the children to know they were capable of raising the funds themselves, to research hunger in American, how it could be impacting those kids that may be their dearest friends, neighbors or relatives. The kids were able to get creative and had posters of their hunger campaign up in the hallways at school. The first year the kids raised $500.00 and in the past 17 years it has grown to a hefty $50,000.00 in 2007.
When the Cunningham’s started to visit Ethiopia in 2003, they revisited Quarters for Kids and realized that not many high school or colleges had showed in interest in raising a quarter. MAYBE, they would be interested in the global world and consider raising 4Quarters, helping a student in Ethiopia with Education, a uniform, shoes and a breakfast and lunch program.
In 2004, Quarters for Kids International was born. Again, the focus are the students, educating themselves in global issues of poverty, as back in 2003 Ethiopia was one of the 3 poorest countries of the world. Their first trip in 2003 included students that visited Yetebon, Ethiopia. They had come at a time that was one of the worst famines since their devastating famine in 1984, that put Ethiopia on the map. There are two documentaries one of the their group’s trip and one of Project Mercy, where they choose to give aid in doing what they can to help.
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