Shoveling chicken excrement, cleaning horse stalls, stacking wood and working other odd jobs helped Thetford Academy students raised money to help Ethiopian orphans last week. The effort was part of "Operation: Day's Work," a national program run by Thetford Academy in which students work for one day a year in their communities to collect money for a non-profit, non-government charity.
Each year, the program raises upwards of $40,000 to fund a project supporting youth and education in a developing country. The money from this year's event will be donated to Selamta Children's Home in Ethiopia to help develop a foster care program for AIDS orphans.
Thetford Academy was one of the six pilot schools for ODW when it was brought from Europe to the United States in 1997. The program was originally administered by the United States Agency for International Development, but it dropped the program in 2005, when Thetford Academy took it over.
The program is administered by Thetford Academy teacher Cindy Perry and her ODW class, which currently has seven students enrolled. The students in the class work all year to prepare for the work day by sending out propositions to non-government organizations in the fall, aiding other schools in starting and maintaining ODW, finding employers for the participants and other tasks.
Last year, the approximately 400 students at Thetford Academy, a school for students grades seven through 12, raised almost half of the $26,000 sent to a Rwandan orphanage. Perry said that their success comes from the fact that they participate as an entire school, while ODW is a club with limited membership at other schools, including Hanover High School. She said approximately 95 to 96 percent of Thetford Academy's students participate.
On the work day, always scheduled for the first Wednesday in May, the students wake up sometimes as early as 4:30 a.m. to get to their jobs. The students work in groups of at least two and said that there has never been a problem with safety so far.
"We're lucky because we have such a small community," one student said. "There is not much threat of kids getting abducted."
There is no set payment for the work, but Perry said that they request at least Vermont minimum wage, $7.53 per hour, although many employers pay more since the money is going to charity.
There were also several students who spent the day in Hanover passing out brochures and collecting donations while playing guitars and handing out food. The students said that this was one of the most lucrative efforts.
"The beggars made more money than any of us," one student said, noting that the seven students who collected donations earned a total of $812.
The money raised for the program will allow the Ethiopian children to grow up in small-family homes, in contrast to life in the orphanages. Norwich resident Carol Foster plans to work on the project in Ethiopia with the funds collected. Foster has 10 children, seven that were adopted, and takes care of five residing in Ethiopia.
Perry said that they are very happy to be working with Foster this year.
