Students help South Sudanese

Seventh-graders at Mary Our Queen School in Omaha are helping raise money for clean water in South Sudan, including $4,000 collected last year and a Feb. 27 fundraiser that raised $1,700. 

 

As sixth-graders they read a book about a young Sudanese boy who was separated from his family because of civil unrest and wandered from one refugee camp to another. The students found out he is now an adult, living in the United States, and operating the nonprofit Water for South Sudan. So they took up the clean-water cause, and continue to raise funds now as seventh-graders. 

 

They’ve already exceeded their $5,000 goal, enough to get the school name on a well in Africa. They also are involving this year’s sixth-grade class in their efforts, said Jennifer Jeffrey, sixth-grade math and social studies teacher.