Couple funding school in Ethiopia

POTSDAM — In a small village in Ethiopia, people are buying wood, stone and roofing materials to build a four-room schoolhouse, thanks to the fundraising efforts of a Potsdam couple.

In four months, the two have raised $20,000 to build a school in Gembeltu, a town that does not appear on any map.

"Our first event was March 19 and then we finished July 27," Alex J. French said. "They're buying materials so they all know that the project is happening. They seem pretty excited."

Mr. French and his wife, Kayla R., decided to try to raise the money to build the school in February, after he came home from Ethiopia, where he was working with a nongovernmental agency called Ascend Alliance, which has since been renamed Forever Young. A friend he made while he was over there, Mieso, took him to his village and asked for Mr. French's help in building a school. Classes now are held under a eucalyptus tree.

Construction will start soon, and by the time Mr. French and another friend, Daniel D. Smith, arrive in the village in November, there already may be classes being held inside the building for the school's estimated 400 students, though it will not be completed then.

But their fundraising efforts are not yet finished. The trio, all fairly recent college graduates, are hoping to raise about $3,000 to help pay for their plane fare. Mr. French and Mr. Smith have paid for their tickets, but are hoping to be able to reimburse themselves so they have some money to live on for the two months they will be there, said Mrs. French, who teaches eighth grade at Gouverneur Middle School. She will go to Ethiopia for about two weeks when her school is on Christmas break.

"The cost of that airfare is a bit more than I can handle on my $10 an hour as a landscaper," Mr. French said. "We really want to make this fundraising separate from our other fundraising, just for transparency. We wanted that to be clear to people."

They already have received $1,000 from a donor and are planning another fundraising event the evening of Sept. 10 at La Casbah.

While in Ethiopia, the trio will take the school's teachers shopping for supplies and uniforms and look into building a water-catchment system to treat the village's water supply. They also hope to be able to put up a soccer goal, Mr. French said.

"We just want the kids to have a place to play," Mrs. French said. "Every school should have a playground."