School Kits for refugee children

I was in 10,000 Villages the other day and came across these pamphlets distributed by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) on how a community can put together school kits for children displaced by war. I thought this would be a great opportunity for our local MAU community to support the world's children in a very concrete way. The pamphlet reads as follows:

"School kits are MCC's most requested item. They are given primarily to refugee children, helping students and teachers add some normalcy to disrupted lives. Countries receiving shipments include Afghanistan, Liberia, Sudan, Bosnia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Colombia, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, North Korea, Iraq and Palestine.

Contents (NEW items only)
4 spiral notebooks or notebooks with perforations (about 21.5 cm x 27 cm/8in x 10.5in; about 70 - 80 sheets each)
4 unsharpened #2 pencils
1 ruler (flat flexible plastic, indicating both 30cm and 12in)
12 colored pencils (in packaging)
1 large pencil eraser

School kits are distributed in a useful double drawstring cloth bag (28cm x 40.6cm/11in x 16in). You may sew the bag yourself (instructions at www.mcc.org/kits/kitbags), request bags from an MCC collection center, or donate contents to be placed in a bag."

10,000 Villages requests that we get the materials to their store no later than August 31, leaving us the rest of the month to get these kits together. Let's aim for 5 complete kits. You can bring the materials to me directly, or bring them to upcoming August Friday gatherings at Centennial, or to the potluck this Friday. If you're interested in contributing, please email me and let me know what you'd like to give and I can coordinate it so we don't all choose colored pencils or erasers.

Kate
kzwingate@yahoo.com