School Projects and Events
Each of the following fundraisers was organized by volunteers to support projects funded through Direct Change.
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Lazar Middle School, Montville, NJ
Date: May 17 – June 1, 2007
Amount Raised: $23,066.60
The students of Robert R. Lazar Middle School in Montville, NJ have walked 1,100 miles to raise money for the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Southern Sudan. [1,100 is the number of miles that the Lost Boys of Sudan walked after fleeing the war in their homeland and finally settling in a refugee camp in Kenya.] The 1,050 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students with the full support of the school community walked as many laps as they could around the school track during their physical education and health classes having gotten pledges from family and friends. As of June 1, the Lazar school raised over $23,000! |
Students Presenting Check - 6/08/2007
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Two teachers, Judy Gothelf and Joe Keiser, organized the walk-a-thon in conjunction with the school’s second annual
Living Lessons: Voices, Visions, and Values program. This year’s program featured 46 individuals who have overcome adversity and faced challenges in their lives from Columbine to the Holocaust to the
Oklahoma City bombing to World War II prisoners of war.
John Dau participated as a representative of the thousands of children who endured unimaginable hardships in their struggle to survive as refugees from the war in Southern
Sudan. The idea to organize a fund raising event following the program grew out of a student essay writing contest. Judy had learned of John Dau from an article in
People magazine.
Judy and Joe launched a school-wide publicity campaign, raising awareness through such tactics as taking over physical education classes for a day to tell the students about John Dau and the fund raising project. A committee of students was formed, posters were put up all over the school, and 10 facts about John (1 per day leading up to the program) were seen on the school’s television station. Judy placed a sign over her door reading “Who is John Bul Dau?” John spoke individually to each of the grades, and the response from the students was electrifying. In Judy’s own words:
“The kids are really doing great and feel like they are truly helping the villagers of Duk. It is amazing to see and listen to them speak of the experience. What a powerful learning experience! As a teacher, it is hard to explain how gratified I have felt working on this project. It has taught all of us both adults and students alike so many lessons....work hard to accomplish your goals, do something to help others, and start to change the world just a little bit at a time. These are lessons that will stay with each of us for the rest of our lives.”
> 2006-2007 Change Champions Award Recipient - Read News Release > Speech by Lazar Student Sophia Rinaldo Presenting Donation > Download Walk-a-Thon Pledge Sheet
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Glasgow Middle School, Fairfax County, Virginia
Amount Raised: $4,900
The students and staff of Glasgow (a Fairfax County Public School) participated in a 10 hour read-a-thon to help support the Duk Lost Boys Clinic and make John Dau's dream a reality. Glasgow students had been learning about Sudan and how they could help. They are invested in being responsible and caring global citizens by identifying what other countries, like Sudan, need help to make a positive change in trying times. |
 John Dau visit with Glasgow - 3/16/2007
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The lesson plan for the Read-a-Thon focused on Community and Service and Health and Social Education. These areas of interest relate well to John Dau’s amazing story. John survived a harrowing odyssey in a war torn land, traveling by foot in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya, and relying on his leadership and natural instincts to overcome countless obstacles. By virtue of his strength, his skills, and his will to make a better life for himself, his family, and his countrymen, John came to the United States and has succeeded in becoming a leader, a husband, a father, a providing son, and an ambassador for his country.
Having resettled in a life of tremendous wealth and comfort by comparison to the refugee camp where he lived for 10 years, John Dau set about to organize and lead his fellow “Lost Boys” to find ways to help those who continued to endure extremely difficult living conditions in Sudan. John now works full time raising money for a health clinic in his home county and for other programs established to aid children in need in Africa. And so the guiding question for the unit became: What does a person owe his past?
The classes are working to understand what bearing past events in their communities have on their understanding of what they owe to them and on the student’s decisions as to what they will contribute to the communities in which they settle as adults. |
> Donate through this project > Download Lesson Plan > Download Reflection Guide > Read-A-Thon Web Page
Kids for World Health Reach-Out for Life… An Evening of Awareness and Hope
Hommock Middle School, Larchmont, NY
Date: May 16, 2007
Amount Raised: $14,000 and counting
Kids for World Health home-based local chapters with the assistance of Kay Kobbe, President of the Kids for World Health Board of Directors and other Board members and advisers, organized a very successful evening program to focus community attention on the organization's mission and to raise funds for John Bul Dau's newly constructed health clinic in Duk County, southern Sudan (http://www.directchange.org/partners/sudan-health/). Over 400 members of the Mamaroneck Union Free School district and local communities in southern Westchester County attended the event in spite of a violent storm.
Kay had learned of John Dau, who was the featured speaker for the evening, from seeing the film God Grew Tired of Us, and recommended his participation in the program to the students. The evening program included a screening of the documentary film, followed by John's commentary and responses to questions from the audience.
Students direct the Kids for World Health organization with the assistance of adult advisers, and they jumped at the opportunity to include John in their program and to promote his effort to raise funds for the health clinic in Duk County. They agreed to make a $7,000 donation from their chapter's funds, and with John's help, were successful in inspiring hundreds of individual donors from the community to agree to match this with another $7,000.
Members of the organization and others throughout the community, organized into teams to develop and execute an intense school district-wide publicity campaign with fliers distributed across two towns and articles in school newspapers across the district. Local synagogues and churches, local organizations, medical personnel, and community businesses assisted with advertising the event.
Kids for World Health made this decision to support John's clinic based on the organization's mission to help access medicines and raise awareness for neglected diseases in countries where they are not available to all people. John's clinic has been created for the purpose of treating some of the same diseases that KFWH services.
Also to obtain more information about KFWH, and to start a chapter, please go to the website at www.kfwh.org.
> Donate Through This Project > Download the Reach-Out for Life flier
Windward School, Los Angeles
Date: February 24, 2007
Amount Raised: $8,505
The Battle of the Bands Concert featured bands from high schools around West Los Angeles. Thanks to the sponsorship of Mazda North America, all proceeds from ticket sales were donated to support the Duk Lost Boys Clinic. Windward is an independent school located in West L.A. comprised of students ranging from grades 7-12.
Organizers of this year’s Battle of the Bands were able screen “God Grew Tired of Us,” a National Geographic documentary which follows the lives of three survivors of the war in Southern Sudan as a consequence of which thousands of boys became separated from their families and came to be known as the Lost Boys of Sudan. Crowning the event was a visit by John Dau, one of the Lost Boys featured in the documentary. John spoke to both the student and the parent/teacher movie audiences and attended the concert. Proceeds from the sale of movie and concert tickets were donated to Direct Change.
Here is an excerpt from John Dau’s blog post following the event: “Throughout the day, I could see in the eyes of the students that they wanted to help Southern Sudan. Where did they get this value of helping others, including foreigners? Does this value of helping the needy come from their parents, teachers, school administrators, neighbors or government? I think it probably comes from all of the above. This desire to help others is a trait that is very special about the United States of America.”
Connecting an annual community event with the opportunity to experience the inspiring stories of the Lost Boys and learn more about those events first hand from a newly minted author and movie star – and raise a significant amount of money to support John Dau’s health clinic project in Southern Sudan – was a truly powerful and profound union!
> Story from Windward Today > John's Blog Post
Dollar Campaign
University of Wisconsin-Waukesha
Date: March 26-May 9
Goal: $2008
The "Dollar Campaign" is a fundraiser that was developed, in part, as a way of saying thank you to John Bul Dau for coming and sharing his "living testimony" with the campus community at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. In the process of raising money, the campus community is also hoping to promote awareness of the current political and social conditions in the Sudan, and demonstrate how they can make a direct difference in helping improve those conditions even half the world away. Many of the students feel as though they cannot give enough to have much of an impact, so the goal of the "Dollar Campaign" is to raise at least one dollar for every student, faculty/staff person, and member of the administration on the campus to show how if we all play even just a small part, together we have the resources to promote change.
> Donate through this project > News Release on John Dau's Visit
