Children Helping Children at Vacation Bible School

Children who participated in the Vacation Bible School at the Aitkin United Methodist Church collected 137 pairs of shoes for the children at the Mbiriizi Advanced Primary and Day Care School in Uganda, Africa.  The project, entitled “Shoes of Peace”, was the brainchild of the VBS coordinators, Celia Doty and Julie Hansen.

The VBS was held August 19-23 and ran from 9 to 11:30 am.  A total of 15 children ranging in age from 4 to 12 participated in this drive.  Sylvia Allen, founder of Sylvia’s Children, spoke to the children, talked about how different the living conditions were for the African children and demonstrated how valuable these she contributions were to the Ugandan children, many of whom have no shoes.

Celia, who went to Uganda with Sylvia’s Children on their Christmas 2010 trip said, “When our children learned that many children had no shoes at all, when they themselves had as many as 10 pairs, they began to enthusiastically collect shoes and bring them to school.”  Interestingly, as people learned about the shoe drive they began to bring shoes to Celia’s shop, Modern Beauty.  She is still accepting donations and, as she said, “With 1,000 children needing shoes just keep bringing the shoes!”

Sylvia’s Children, a 501(c)3 organization supporting 1,000+ orphans and children at the Mbiriizi Advanced Primary and Day Care School in Mbiriizi, Uganda, Africa, was founded 10 years ago by Sylvia Allen.  (Many of you know Sylvia as the owner of the Butler Building in Aitkin, MN which has gone through extensive historic renovation.)  For information on Sylvia’s Children go to www.sylviaschildren.org.

To contact Celia @ Modern Beauty call 218 927 2950 or at home @ 218 927 6877.  Modern Beauty is located at 308 First Avenue NE (Aitkin) and is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8 am to 6 pm  Shoes can be dropped off there any time.