While most Cicero students and teachers begin to settle into their summer vacations, Goodwin Elementary School Social Worker Tiffany Jones will board a plane Monday bound for Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.

Once there, she will spend the next seven weeks working as a teacher, tutor, and HIV/AIDS awareness educator with AHOPE, a care center and orphanage for HIV+ children. To prepare for her trip, Jones enlisted the help of Goodwin students to raise money for the Ethiopian children.

“I think this really gave them global awareness,” Jones said. “I also wanted them to know that you could go to all these places, and you could see all these different things.”

To help engage the students, Jones found a program that raises money to print books in Ethiopia and started Pennies for Ethiopia Reads in her classrooms. Ethiopia Reads publishes one book for each $1 raised. The books are printed in both English and the students’ native language, Amharic.

Throughout the year, Jones planned small fundraisers and lessons for the students, including cooking Ethiopian food, and allowing students to wear jeans for a day if they brought in $1 for the project.

Each classroom also received a jug and collected only pennies. By the end of the year, students had raised $495, triple what Jones had expected.

“They learned that there were students out there that needed more things than they did.   They really stepped up and they wanted to help,” Jones said.  

Notable
Jones has started a blog, takeactionforahope.blogspot.com, to highlight her fundraising efforts and to raise awareness about AHOPE. She will be posting regular updates throughout her trip to Ethiopia.

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“I wish that more people would be aware of the issues out there and that one person, no matter how little money or how little time they have, can still make an impact,” Jones said.

Philosophy
“I want each of my students to find a passion in something. Once you find that, I feel you can be successful,” Jones said.

How to donate
To make a donation, visit Jones’ blog and click the “Donate” link. For more information about AHOPE, visit AHopeforChildren.org.