DAYTON, Ohio — A former Ohio teacher and her former student have teamed up to help kids around the world get an education.
Retired Dayton teacher Veleta Jenkins and her former student Darius Ricks had an idea more than three years ago to help kids in Ricks’ home country in Liberia, Africa.
They started raising money to build the first public library there.
Jenkins said so far they’ve raised $20,000 and bought the land but they still need more than $300,000 to start the build.
While they wait for funding, they’re doing book drives to get books and supplies to kids in need there.3
“We can give it all to them to create opportunity because I think we spoke to you and you saw the kids last year, the school was deplorable, and some of those children they don’t even have books to go to school,” said Ricks.
The two are hosting a book drive on Saturday, Dec. 10 where they’ll be collecting books and supplies.
“They barely have any material so Darius and I thought, we have people right here in Dayton in the United States, children aren’t using their books anymore, I know I grabbed my daughter’s stuff from kindergarten to 9th grade, and said you’re not using it, give it to somebody else,” said Jenkins.
They’ll be collecting books from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Trotwood Library, just outside Dayton, at 855 East Main St. in Trotwood.
For more information about the mission and how to help, click here.
Editor’s Note: The photo caption has been corrected to reflect it was provided by the Library for Africa. (Dec. 9, 2022)
