By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

For the next four weeks, students at Cape Elizabeth’s Pond Cove
Elementary School will be giving up their allowance, forgoing video
game rentals, performing odd jobs at home and even searching under
couch cushions – all to benefit children they’ve never met.

During a two-day visit last week, International Childhood Enrichment
Program (ICEP) Executive Director Dalinda Carpenter told Pond Cove
students they could help provide a safe place to play for school
children in Haiti, during a presentation kicking off the school-wide
“Give it Up for the Playground” project. Scarborough based ICEP is a
non-profit organization that builds playgrounds in the poor and
conflict-ridden countries Afghanistan, Somalia, Liberia and Haiti.

Pond Cove Principal Tom Eismeier said the school’s involvement with
ICEP began with the school’s climate committee – a group of teachers,
staff, parents and administrators who work to promote positive
relations, respect and community – wanting to expand the school’s
horizons. That’s when the district’s volunteer coordinator Gail
Schmader contacted Carpenter.

“Do you like playing on the playground?” Eismeier asked a group of fourth graders, seated on the cafeteria floor.

The students responded with a unanimous, “Yes!” and Eismeier said, “I
don’t know about you, but it would be hard for me to imagine our school
without a playground.”

Students at the Church School in the City Chovel District of Cap
Haitian, Haiti – the country’s second largest city – play in a gravel
schoolyard marked with large rocks. Pigs also roam freely around the
school, charging at the children when they feel threatened, Carpenter
said.

In the coming weeks, Pond Cove students will attempt to raise $2,500
for the installation of playground equipment. Carpenter said a new
wall, expected to be complete in March, will keep the pigs out of the
schoolyard.

On a large projection screen, Carpenter showed slides of Haitian
children from another village playing on their school’s new playground
equipment, provided by ICEP and a Maine school.

In one photo, several children are crowded together at the top of a
slide, all apparently eager for their turn to slide to the bottom.

About 320 students attend the Church School and the children range in
age from 3- to 6-years-old. Most of the schools are private and tuition
can cost $100 per year, “which to a Haitian it might as well be a
million [dollars],” Carpenter said.

Students attend the same school from kindergarten through high school,
however, students are often forced to  leave school and go to work
for their families, Carpenter said.

According to ICEP, students learn in a building with flooding problems,
a sporadic source of electricity and a corrugated iron roof. Students
learn to read and write in their native language, Creole, and in the
fourth grade, they begin to learn French. In seventh grade, they study
English. Students also learn math, Haitian history, world history,
sewing and music.

Carpenter will travel to Haiti in March and take letters from Pond Cove
students who wish to communicate with their new Church School
associates. The letters, like the playground equipment, let the Haitian
students know people are concerned about their welfare.

“They like to know people care and are aware of their needs,” Carpenter said. 





What kids are saying:

Students in Tara Bucci’s fourth grade class at Pond Cove Elementary
School offered up ideas on how they plan to raise money for their
faraway friends’ new playground equipment:

• Logan is earning money by doing chores around his house.

• Nate and his family is saving money by not going out to eat at his ski house – they are staying in and eating pasta!

• Alex is returning bottles and bringing in the money.

• Tory is putting her allowance towards the playground.

• Monika is not going out to eat – but staying in – also giving some Christmas money.

• Marcus and his mom are saving up money.  

• Tess is selling her old nintendo DS to give money to the playground.

• Maddie babysat to earn money to give to the playground.

• Kate is making stones with sayings – and hair barrets to sell for money.  

• Chloe is making friendship bracelets to make money.