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Volunteers load desks and other items this week at Fredericksburg's Walker-Grant Middle School. The shipment is bound for El Progreso, Honduras. |
Shin Fujiyama had some last-minute packing to do before leaving for his seventh humanitarian trip to Honduras early Tuesday morning.
Fujiyama, who will begin his fifth year at the University of Mary Washington later this month, spent several hours Monday filling a semitrailer with desks, school supplies, clothes and other items for children at Copprome, an orphanage in El Progreso, Honduras.
Fujiyama and a dozen or so volunteers loaded as many desks, chairs, dry-erase boards and other classroom items as possible into the truck outside Walker-Grant Middle School in scorching midday heat.
The Fredericksburg school, along with the old James Monroe High School on Washington Avenue, donated the majority of the items. Toys, games, mattresses and the rest came from the Fredericksburg community, said Fujiyama, co-founder of Students Helping Honduras.
The nonprofit organization is dedicated to bettering life in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. The group has a special focus on El Progreso, home to Copprome and the refugee village of Siete de Abril.
The truck grew fuller as the mountain of boxes and garbage bags filled with donations dwindled, but there still were plenty of items left at the school.
"How many more desks do we have? Is this it?" Fujiyama asked, peering down from the back of the truck at a dozen desks.
"No, we have all these," said 2003 UMW alumnus Gabe Walters, pointing to several dozen more beside the truck.
Walters, former program coordinator of the university's James Farmer Multicultural Center, is one of the 15 or so volunteers who accompanied Fujiyama on the three-week mission trip.
The volunteers planned to hand-deliver some items and work with the children while awaiting the container of donations, which was scheduled to be shipped from Delaware later in the week.
Some items--winter clothes, a giant Homer Simpson doll, miscellaneous kitchen supplies--were filtered out.
There wasn't enough room for everything, so organizers had to prioritize.
Board games made way for blackboards, sweaters for soccer balls.
"There's no better gift for a kid down there than a pair of soccer shoes and a ball," said Fujiyama, 22, as he loaded boxes of cleats and soccer shorts into the truck.
A wooden, dormitory-style couch also made the cut. It'll fit perfectly in Copprome's common room, which recently got a TV, thanks to Students Helping Honduras.
"I hate watching kids watch TV on the floor," Fujiyama said. "They'll never ask for a bench because they feel so blessed to just have a TV."
Leftover clothes and toys were donated to Goodwill. Extra furniture was given back to the schools.
Fujiyama, who lives in Falls Church when he's not at UMW, is taking an extra year to complete pre-med requirements.
The Japan native organized the shipment of another container of clothes and supplies last year, said the Rev. Bob Azzarito, campus minister for UMW's Campus Christian Community.
The CCC is planning its third mission trip to Honduras for next January, and has been an active supporter of Students Helping Honduras.
Together, the two groups have raised about $150,000 for Copprome through a walkathon in April and a matching grant of up to $100,000 from local philanthropist Doris Buffett, Azzarito said.
The money will pay off the orphanage's land debts and fund an expansion project.
To reach NATASHA ALTAMIRANO:
Email: naltamirano@freelancestar.com
