November 26, 2004: Headlines: COS - Mauritania: Service: Fund Raising: Charlotte Observer: High School student Scott Myers started "Sustain Mauritania" after hearing Robb Warfield speak about his two years in the Peace Corps
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November 26, 2004: Headlines: COS - Mauritania: Service: Fund Raising: Charlotte Observer: High School student Scott Myers started "Sustain Mauritania" after hearing Robb Warfield speak about his two years in the Peace Corps
High School student Scott Myers started "Sustain Mauritania" after hearing Robb Warfield speak about his two years in the Peace Corps
High School student Scott Myers started "Sustain Mauritania" after hearing Robb Warfield speak about his two years in the Peace Corps
Touched by African nation's plight, he took action
Today we say "hello" to Scott Myers, a senior at North Mecklenburg High School. He was so touched by the story of Mauritania, Africa, he started a group to help the struggling country.
Q. How did you hear about Mauritania? I was at Governor's School East in Raleigh this past summer. There was a speaker there from the Peace Corps, Robb Warfield (also magnet coordinator of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools). He came to speak about his two years in Mauritania. We learned that Mauritania is a country in western Saharan Africa where slavery was outlawed in 1980, but there is still quite a bit of it there. There's an annual income of about $430 per year. That includes the money made by slave owners. There is a locust crisis that has destroyed crops. They're sending a lot of aid but they still need help.
Q. What happened after you heard Warfield speak? When I got back from Governor's School, I had him come and speak at an assembly at school. I spoke at a staff meeting and had to convince as many teachers as I could to bring their classes. We had about 1,000 people come and listen to him on Oct. 22. That motivated quite a few more people at our school to help.
Q. What then? I had created an organization called Sustain Mauritania at the beginning of the year, but this is when I got most of my volunteers. It's a fund-raising group to directly give money to Mr. Warfield when he goes back on Dec. 27.
We're having a fund-raising dinner on Dec. 10 at North Meck High School, in the cafeteria. There's going to be Italian food, live bands and an auction. Hopefully, Mr. Warfield is coming to talk about the crisis in Mauritania. We have a lot of donations from businesses to auction.
Q. Who will cook the food? We're going to be cooking it. My brother (Joe) is a student at Johnson & Wales, so he is organizing the cooking aspect of it.
Q. How many fellow students are helping? I have a core group of 25, but there's going to be more than 100 people selling tickets. We have tons of organizations at North Meck, Hopewell, Independence -- we're selling tickets all over. South Meck is going to help us quite a bit because there is a girl there who also went to Governor's School who's aiding us.
Q. Who can come? It's geared toward everybody. Right now there's a big deficiency in how much people know (about Mauritania). We're trying to educate people. We're going to have people of all ages -- high school, parents, people who aren't even associated with students.
Q. What motivated you? Mr. Warfield told about how he got a stipend of $100 a month from the Peace Corps. He would use that to buy packages of milk for the mothers who couldn't squeeze any milk out because they were so malnourished. One day he only had one sack left, and two mothers came up to speak with him. One had twins, the other only had one child. He ended up giving the milk to the mother who had twins and hoped the other mother would be able to somehow feed her child. He came to visit her a week later and asked how her child was. She gave him a sad look and told him her child had died.
Just hearing that, and realizing that this is the way of life for these people, is incredible to me. We really are blessed in America. If 50 cents, the cost of one bag of milk, can make such a difference in saving a person's life -- what more will we be able to do with the money we make?
WANT TO GO?
The dinner is 6:30-8:30 p.m. Dec. 10 (a Friday) at North Mecklenburg High, 11201 Old Statesville Road, Huntersville. Tickets at the door are $7 adults, $5 students. Details: sustain_mauritania@web.de
When this story was posted in November 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:
| The Birth of the Peace Corps UMBC's Shriver Center and the Maryland Returned Volunteers hosted Scott Stossel, biographer of Sargent Shriver, who spoke on the Birth of the Peace Corps. This is the second annual Peace Corps History series - last year's speaker was Peace Corps Director Jack Vaughn. |
| Charges possible in 1976 PCV slaying Congressman Norm Dicks has asked the U.S. attorney in Seattle to consider pursuing charges against Dennis Priven, the man accused of killing Peace Corps Volunteer Deborah Gardner on the South Pacific island of Tonga 28 years ago. Background on this story here and here. |
| Director Gaddi Vasquez: The PCOL Interview PCOL sits down for an extended interview with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez. Read the entire interview from start to finish and we promise you will learn something about the Peace Corps you didn't know before.
Plus the debate continues over Safety and Security. |
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Story Source: Charlotte Observer
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Mauritania; Service; Fund Raising
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