U-46 packs truck with shoes for Syrian refugees
Hundreds of pairs of shoes were loaded onto a truck Friday in Elgin and are headed for Syrian refugee camps.
Elgin Area School District U-46 school board member Phil Costello delivered the donations - mostly from U-46 students and families, and Lamplighter Church in Streamwood - to a friend in Mokena who later will ship them by container to refugee camps in Lebanon.
As he surveyed the mounds of shoes, Costello said he was surprised and grateful for the generosity of people.
"It's very engaging to talk to people ... how it made people feel just to be part of this," he said. "You see the best out of everyone when you are able to put together an effort like this, and I was very proud of being just a part of it."
Costello said he felt it was important to get U-46 schools and students involved so they could be "a part of something bigger than their own lives."
His friend, Lisa Haser, an oncology nurse from Mokena, herself has collected roughly 2,000 pairs of shoes through the help of suburban mosques and Catholic schools.
She will be taking the donations to Boston, and from there they will be shipped, Costello said.
Haser started the drive after seeing firsthand the plight of Syrian refugees who fled their homeland, engulfed in a civil war now in its fifth year.
She was part of a medical mission to Lebanon in February. Its residents of those refugee camps, along the mountains of Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, will benefit from the shoes through the help of the Midwest chapter of the Syrian American Medical Society.
Meanwhile, students at Bartlett High School are doing a separate fundraiser to support a Syrian refugee family of six, including school-age children, from Turkey being resettled in Wheaton through a federal government program with the help of World Relief DuPage/Aurora.
Students in the school's Interact Club are selling T-shirts and donation boxes are set up at the school.
They have raised nearly $800 toward a goal of $1,300, said Larry Pahl, who teaches civics and world history.
"It costs about $1,300 to cover (the family) for two months," Pahl said.
Money raised will be matched by the federal government to provide the family housing and other assistance. Fundraising at the school will continue until the end of the school year, he added.
Pahl brought in refugee educator Alisa Healy and World Relief's Tim Kustusch, who gave presentations Friday to raise awareness about the refugees.
Additionally, more than 600 students watched an award-winning documentary, "Salam Neighbor," chronicling life in a Syrian refugee camp.