News from the Mission
Reading Text Books for Cape Primary School
September 16, 2009
American Reading Specialist Beth Elmen, and daughter Katie Elmen, a Special Education teacher in Cape Town, have spent the last two years building the library at Kleinberg Primary school in Ocean View, just outside of Cape Town.
It began with a letter-writing partnership between the children of Kleinberg and students at Nancy Young Elementary in Aurora, Illinois. The most recent goal was to get the school reading textbooks. Oakbrook School District #53 generously donated an entire textbook series, grades 1-5.
The challenge was getting the books overseas to the school. It took over a year to collect enough money through private donations from friends and family to pay for the shipping from Illinois to Cape Town. The 4200 lbs of books were finally shipped in August 2009 and recently arrived.
With the help of Jethro van Aardt and US Consulate General Dr Alberta Mayberry, the books were presented on September 15 to Kleinberg Primary School. Many thanks go out to all who helped fulfil the dream of providing materials to promote literacy and instil a love of learning to children around the world. Beth plans to continue to build the school and classroom libraries in the future. She can be contacted at beth_elmen@ipsd.org.