Schools

Learning through love

Students at Spring Hill Christian Academy are writing to a Guatemalan girl.

By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE, Times Correspondent
Published September 6, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Ron Thompson] Students in the spanish classes at Spring Hill Christian Academy have adopted a 10-year-old Guatemalan orphan, Silvia Veronica Jimenez Hernandez and will be sending support money to her orphanage to help meet her living needs. Among the students involved are Spanish 2 students (left to right) Karisa Kroslack, Holly Franey, Kayla Karban, Michael Garcia, Andrew Joyce and Chad Smith.

SPRING HILL - Silvia Veronica Jimenez Hernandez is a Guatemalan girl who has new friends in Florida.

The friends are Spring Hill Christian Academy Spanish students who are getting to know 10-year-old Silvia by writing letters to her at the orphanage where she lives.

After hearing about an organization called Celebrate Children International from a co-worker, Alexandra Lopez presented the project to her Spanish I and II students. She explained that the group sets up adoptions for children from foreign countries, but it also provides help for abused and older children, who often find it more difficult to be adopted.

Children can be sponsored monthly for $25, quarterly for $75 or yearly for $300. Lopez went online and printed stories about five children in need of sponsors, "because I thought it would be a good way to do a Christian service," she said.

Lopez posted stories about the children and asked them to pick one to sponsor. The students picked Silvia, but they later learned that she already had been assigned to another sponsor. So students will go ahead and correspond with her, but they will sponsor another child.

Silvia's story was a sad one: Her parents forced her to work, and she was denied a chance to go to school. Spanish II student Karisa Kroslack, a 14-year-old sophomore, was moved by it.

"She had to go to an airport to sell stuff and if she didn't have anything to sell, they had to kind of sell themselves, you would say. And you shouldn't have to go through that just to feed your family," she said. "It would scar you."

There were 13 girls found at the airport doing similar work, Lopez said.

Students wrote letters to Silvia, which Lopez translated into Spanish.

To raise money for a sponorship, Lopez asked each student to bring in $2. She has 16 students in Spanish I and six in Spanish II. She wanted the monthly monetary gift to mean something, so she made a request to parents.

"A lot of them take for granted what they have, and God wants us to learn about other people," she said. "I have told the parents not to just give them that money. I want them to earn it."

Spanish II 10th-grader Chad Smith, 15, appreciates the letter-writing project, "just knowing the letters that we sent are going to help her in her life."

Karisa agrees: "I'm glad that she's going to be making tons of new friends."

"I hope we can make a difference in your life so that you can make a difference in others, too."

Chad Smith

"You're a very pretty little girl and don't ever doubt yourself because you can do anything that you put your mind and heart into. God bless you."

Shannon Taylor

"I'm sorry that you have to go through that at your age and I hope that our class can help as much as possible this year."

Kayla Karban

"What would you like to be when you grow up? I still don't know what I want to be. You are always in our prayers."

Holly Franey

"I am very interested in learning about you and your interests. What do you do in your spare time?"

Karisa Kroslack

"I like to play basketball and football. My favorite color is blue and I live in a yellow house. ... What are your favorite colors? I hope to hear from you soon."

Michael Garcia

Fast facts

To Learn More

For information about Celebrate Children International programs, go to www.celebratechildren.org.

[Last modified September 5, 2007, 20:38:09]