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Bootstrap Walk to help children in Tanzania get better education
Published 12:00 p.m., June 4, 2007
Participants in Thursday’s Fergus Falls Area Operation Bootstrap Africa Walk — the 20th annual event — can be assured that pledges and donations make a real difference for people in Tanzania, a country in East Africa, the event’s organizers said.
“The generosity of people in the Fergus Falls area positively impacts close to 600 students at a primary school in the village of Ketumbeine,” Bootstrap volunteer Morrie Kershner said. “Hope for the Masai people is in education. Parents there, just like those of us here in the United States, have the same hopes and dreams for their children.”
The United Republic of Tanzania is bordered by Kenya and Uganda. The concentration of wildlife and national parks within traditional Masai territories are directly attributable to the Masai reverence for and stewardship of nature.
Kershner, who has visited Tanzania twice — the last time in 2003 with his wife, Marion — said the children there come to school ready to learn.
“Even the poorest of the poor pride themselves in neatness of appearance and are highly attentive in the classroom,” Kershner said. “Anyone who has visited Tanzania feels good about his or her experience and knows that funds from Operation Bootstrap Africa Walk are put to good use.”
People of all ages are invited to participate in Thursday’s walk, 5:15 p.m. at the Court House steps a block south of City Hall. Each walker is urged to obtain sponsors who will provide monetary gifts for the walk. However, anyone can walk and offer a private financial gift for this worthy cause.
Funds raised through the Fergus Falls annual walk, sponsored jointly by several area churches and Operation Bootstrap Africa, helped transform the Ketumbeine primary school by building three new classrooms, four girls’ dormitories, and remodeling other dilapidated classrooms and buildings.
“This year, we’ll help celebrate our 20 years of walks by urging people to bring 20 pencils, pens, erasers and/or pencil sharpeners that will be delivered to the children in Ketumbeine,” Kershner said.
A group of Masai widows from Ketumbeine do traditional beadwork to support themselves and their children. Some of the money is used to purchase uniforms and supplies in order to send their children to school.
Each person who completes the walk on Thursday In Fergus Falls will receive a Masai-made bracelet.
The Rev. David Simonson, a Fergus Falls area native and Lutheran missionary who has helped better the lives of people in Africa since the late 1950s, founded Operation Bootstrap Africa in the 1960s.
For more information, contact the Operation Bootstrap office in the Twin Cities at 612-871-4980 or Morrie Kershner at 736-5493.
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