Members of Summerland United Church’s Mission and Service Committee attended a recent barbecue dinner at Marilyn and John Topham’s home to kick-off their annual school bag campaign.
Offerings at the Sunday morning service along with subsequent generous donations were sufficient to fill 307 bags with items needed by underprivileged children in selected countries.
Donations are welcomed and will still be received until the first week of October.
The school bags will then be taken to the Ten Thousand Villages Store in Penticton for transport to the Mennonite Central Committee’s warehouse facility in Abbotsford to await shipping to this year’s designated countries.
Many people have been involved in cutting the cloth, sewing the seams, and filling the bags with scribblers, pencils, erasers and rulers.
In the past five years, more than 1,000 school kits have been sent from Summerland through the Mennonite Central Committee to many developing countries.
Since February, MCC has sent such school kits to Zambia, Lebanon and Jordan.
This fall, school kits will be sent to the Ukraine/Crimea, Bosnia and Mozambique.
