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Forty years and half a world away, Farrar Atkinson was reunited recently with the Filipino students she inspired while serving in the Peace Corps in the 1960s
Forty years and half a world away, Farrar Atkinson was reunited recently with the Filipino students she inspired while serving in the Peace Corps in the 1960s
After 40 years, a local woman is reunited with her Filipino students
By Camie Young
camie.young@gwinnettdailypost.com
Caption: Mila Binstock, left, looks at photos from the class of 1964 with her teacher Farrar Atkinson, right. Binstock was the valedictorian of her class. Gwinnett Daily Post/Craig Moore
LAWRENCEVILLE - Her service lasted two years, but the friendships have gone on for decades.
Forty years and half a world away, Farrar Atkinson was reunited recently with the Filipino students she inspired while serving in the Peace Corps in the 1960s.
A few weeks ago, the Lawrenceville woman and some of her students, who now live in Lawrenceville and Winder, returned to the Philippines, for a 40-year reunion.
"It is hard to believe so much time has passed," Mila Binstock said with a laugh. "Look at my gray hairs coming out."
Binstock, who came to Lawrenceville four decades ago as Mila Lasala for a scholarship to Mercer University, looked through old and new photographs with her former classmate and current sister-in-law Felicidad Lasala during a dinner party at Atkinson’s.
The three women have married, changed careers, raised children and now grandchildren and moved all around the country, but now Atkinson and Binstock are back in Lawrenceville and Lasala lives in Winder.
All of them point to Manila as the point where their lives took shape.
Binstock and Lasala and several of their classmates say they owe it all to Atkinson.
"She really made a great impact on our lives," said Lasala, an English to speakers of other languages teacher at Lilburn Middle School. "We were inspired. That’s what made me become a teacher."
Forty years ago, Farrar Atkinson, a 25-year-old single woman who wanted to be a missionary, joined the Peace Corps. She traveled halfway around the world, alone and nervous, to become a biology teacher at a Manila high school.
But Atkinson didn’t feel lonely for long.
The Georgian began an art club for some of the gifted students in the school, and that club is still alive today, with a few key members congregating regularly in Atkinson’s Lawrenceville home.
"Nobody can make you feel more wanted, more needed, more accepted than a Filipino," Atkinson said, showing off the dozens of gifts she received during her service in the 1960s and on five trips since then.
"I was overwhelmed by their generosity."
But Binstock and Lasala say Atkinson was just as generous to them.
She helped Binstock, the school’s valedictorian, receive a scholarship to America and sent money to Lasala so she could finish school.
"It’s a time in our lives we can’t forget," Atkinson said of how the friendships lasted four decades.
At the reunion in Manila, the classmates presented their teacher with a crystal lotus blossom to thank her for holding them together all those years.
"Sometimes we can’t believe how strong the bond is," Lasala said.
Gwinnett Daily Post/Craig Moore
Farrar Atkinson of Lawrenceville was presented a crystal Lotus Blossom from the class of 1964 that she taught in the Philippines while working with the Peace Corps. Her students told her she was the center of them and helped keep them together.