“Life is a journey” and on one of my journeys back from my mediation class on Long Island, fall of 2007, my life took on a new turn. Dr. Anele Heiges, a 70+ years-young woman who has just earned her Ph. D., and I were discussing global issues. She began telling me about a lady she knew from Kenya, Agnes Ndetei, who was building wells and planting trees to assist the people who were affected by the drought. Dr. Anele told me that the children there in an area called Kibwezi (don’t worry I could say it either) were not able to go to school because they had to walk for hours every day to get water for their families to drink. And that the women could not work out of the home to help raise their families out of the sub poverty level of existence they were in because they had to collect and boil water for their families to use and to stay home and try to raise some food. She said the people were starving and stuck.

I thought this was all ridiculous! Nobody should have to live like this; everyone should have clean water. Then she told me that they lived over an aquifer, a collection of water under the ground, and they couldn’t afford to dig wells to reach it. That was beyond injustice to me; it hit somewhere deep inside me. What?! The water is right underneath them and they can’t reach it?! I had to do something to help; this was NOT OK.

So I accessed the nearest and dearest community to my heart: the children, teachers, administrators and parents of William B Ward Elementary School.

I already taught Peace Education at Ward School and knew of the altruistic nature of the Principal and Assistant Principal, so I should not have been so surprised when I handed Principal Ken Regan my Wells of Love and Hope Project outline and he said, “Go for it!”

Then I presented it to Mr. John Fogliano, our Assistant Principal, he said, “I wanted a project for our Student Council this year. Let’s open this up to the 50+ members and see where it goes.” When something is right, it is right!

A few days later I was meeting with the members of Ward Student Council and any other 3rd, 4th and 5th graders who thought they would be interested. As I showed them pictures and read of the drought-affected earth and children carrying water and a woman washing clothes in a dirty water hole from which families in the area drank, I started crying and one of the children had to take over the reading for me.

The children asked me when I had been to Kenya; I believe they thought I had been there because their dilemma was so close to my heart. I told them I had not been there yet. Little did they know that a week before I had just learned where Kenya actually was! I learned most of what was going on there through Dr. Anele and the books I took out of the Peekskill Library in order to teach them.

I told the children that if this project touched their hearts, then let’s pick a way they can participate and help. If it did not touch their heart, then find something that did and do something about it. I only wanted them involved if it was important to them. Before we left, there was a list of 6 areas of service that the children delineated and signed up for and Ward School Project Peace: Wells of Love and Hope was born.