Hannah Craig
I first became involved with Heritage when my brother was in Pre-K at Plymouth Meeting Friends School, and Melissa Schoerke was his teacher. At that time she was dating Kwesi and Heritage Academy had its first class of students. That was nearly 7 years ago, and since then they have accomplished so much.
I fell in love with Heritage Academy the first time my mom (who is a board member) told me what The Schoerke Foundation was and what it did. In 6th grade, my mom and I arranged to have pen pals from Heritage, and my whole class at Plymouth each got the unique experience of writing to someone who goes to school in Ghana, something not many 6th graders have the opportunity to do. I know some people, who to this day, still write to their pen pal. I also helped load the container of supplies that was going to be shipped to Ghana in June 2010, and this summer my whole family is going to Ghana for 3 weeks to volunteer and teach.
After being involved for so long, and knowing that I would be going to Heritage this summer, I began to think about a project that I could head on my own. I brought the idea of fundraising for The Schoerke Foundation to the Middle School Community Actions Committee, which I’m a member of, at Germantown Friends School. The other girls on the committee quickly learned about Heritage and without hesitation, started thinking of ideas for fundraising. We came up with the idea of having a middle school dance and all the proceeds would go to Schoerke. We decided on a goal of raising enough money to fund 10 scholarships for students ($750.). Since we were charging a little bit more than usual for the dance, we decided to give people a little extra incentive to come. We thought of giving a discount to anyone who brought in shoes, cleats, soccer equipment, school supplies, backpacks, or laptops. This idea, and the dance combined, turned out to be a huge success. There were more than 150 people at the dance, and we doubled our original goal. After expenses, we raised more than $2,000. We also had so many shoes, cleates, bags, etc. that it filled a whole car. I’m so proud of the committee for completing a huge project like this and for being interested in an organization that many of them had never heard of before.
This project has shown me that no matter how old you are, what school you go to, what people you know, or how much money you have, you can always help by spreading the word. Soon, other people will receive your message and become interested.