Service Projects and Global Outreach

Running River School seeks to take the children beyond the reaches of just our school. We are on the outlook for meaningful, real life service projects for children.

In the fall of 2004 we were put in touch with a woman from Boulder (Torkin Wakefield) living in Uganda with her husband who is an AIDS physician. She had started the Beads for Life program. This program took beaded jewelry made by village Ugandan women, and sold it all over the country, with the main headquarters being in Boulder.

In addition, she was doing everything she could to help AIDS orphans. We were given the opportunity to sponsor a child, Juliet, whose parents had died of AIDS. The whole school participated and our minds and hearts were opened to a whole different world than ours.

Through Torkin’s emails and photos, we learned what Juliet’s life was like. (In math class the older children reconstructed the hut Juliet lives in based on Torkin’s description). We began corresponding with the children at the school Juliet was able to attend because of our help. We sent a package to her which was shared with many other children in her same situation. We also sent school supplies for Juliet’s school. The older class is involved in a photograph and writing project to send to the students, who they have been involved with as pen pals since 2004.

In November 2005 two of our parents travelled to Uganda to visit the school and assessed its needs. The future goal is to gather a group of families from Boulder to build a playground or a kitchen for the school there in the summer of 2006.

In addition, our teachers are seeking grants to travel to the school in Uganda and create a teacher training program. Lastly, we are having an African Evening fundraiser in April to raise money for Juliet’s school and for Running River’s music and theater programs.

2004 Bear Creek Cleanup

In the spring of 2004 Running River School adopted Bear Creek, which runs on the property and down the main street that leads to the school. The kids also did many hikes over the year along the creek in the nearby foothills. Eco-cycle came to the school and gave directions as well as offered tools for cleaning up the creek. The children made posters to put around town and went to local businesses asking for donations as well as for people to come out and help. All donations went towards the publication of the book the children have been working on publishing for two years entitled “A Kid’s Guide to the Mesa Trail.” The day of the clean up all families were on deck and we spent 3 hours cleaning all the garbage out of the creek and creek banks. They gained an appreciation of how much it takes to clean up even a small creek and it gave them some idea of what it might take to clean up a larger river.