Amherst students held between 30 and 40 fund-raisers to raise the money to build a school.
Amherst Regional High School senior Ryan Diplock, the student leader of the Schools for Africa club, talks with Dean Cycon, CEO of Dean's Beans, after Cycon gave the club a check for $1,800 to reach their goal of $20,000. Members of the club are gathered in the backround.AMHERST – They sold hot cocoa, sent out letters and even staged a spoof of Miss America with boys vying for a coveted trophy, and now two years later, Amherst Regional High School students have raised $20,000 to pay for a primary school to be built in Cameroon.
The idea for the project came from Ryan Diplock, who as sophomore class president thought that building a school would be a good class project.
“It was kind of crazy,” said Diplock, now a senior. Once he realized “it wasn’t going to materialize” he shifted focus. He founded the Schools For Africa Club to accomplish his mission.
The 18-year-old said he was inspired by reading Greg Mortenson, the author of “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School At A Time.”
“Education is the main thing you can do to help developing communities,” Diplock said. “You can’t just give people money. That’s where it (the idea) came from for me personally.”
Charles Reiff of Pelham worked with Diplock to lead the project. Living where they do “we have quite a few privileges that could be put to good use.” he said “building a school is the first step to economic change.”
Once the club was founded, they began looking around for an agency to work with and that’s when they found Building Schools for Africa based in the Isle of Wight.
Diplock said they first considered UNICEF, but 10 percent of what they would raise would have gone to administration.
According to the Building Schools for Africa website, “every penny which is donated to Building Schools for Africa goes directly to SHUMAS and is spent on the identified project.” SHUMAS or Strategic Humanitarian Services, is the agency’s partner in Cameroon.
With the Amherst donation, 31 schools have now been funded, according to the website.
The primary school, like the others, will offer three classrooms. Diplock said the roof washed away in a school that was there now and the headmaster got hit on the head. The new school will be built to withstand the rainy season and is expected to last about 40 years, he said.
“We have been thrilled with the HUGE effort that has been made by the children at Amherst High School,” Marianne Johnson, chairwoman of the agency, wrote in an email. “They really have worked wonders,” she wrote. “Although Building Schools for Africa has enjoyed a great deal of support from school children in both UK and USA, not many aim to raise the whole amount needed to rebuild an entire school. Amherst High has really excelled...”
The club started with about eight members but it grew to 47. “Once we started having a kind of success (fund-raising) people started to jump on board,” Diplock said.
They needed the help.
He guesses the club put on between 30 and 40 fund-raisers, including the man pageant. “It was so fun,” he said of the Miss America spoof. Seventeen competed - they had to walk, demonstrate talent and answer a question. He said one competitor put two eggs in his mouth and lifted weights. Some sang.
The prize was a six-foot trophy that they used to showcase the event to generate interest. They raised $2,000 from that event alone. The final $1,800 came in earlier this month from Dean Cycon of Dean’s Beans. Cycon helped in other ways such as supplying pots for the hot cocoa fund-raisers, Diplock said.
Diplock wants to study business and is debating where to go to school - Babson College in Wellesley, Bentley University in Waltham or the University of Connecticut. “I learned a lot about motivation, what it takes to get a fund-raiser (going.)”
Reiff is leaning toward Syracuse University to study communications. He learned about “consistency, staying with a project seeing it through.”
Their work hasn't ended. Diplock and Reiff and others plan to visit the school in December.
Reiff said they are continuing to raise money to buy school supplies. A new club leadership committee will be in charge of continuing fund-raising to build another school. The idea is for the work “to be there for generations.”
Principal Mark Jackson said “the group demonstrated an amazing level of persistence.” In an e-mail he wrote, “at ARHS, this is not atypical. Students here have very strong political convictions. And there are no shortage of examples of them working to turn their convictions into concrete actions.”