BRATTLEBORO — Having just returned from a trip to Cuba, three Brattleboro Union High School seniors found the transition following a trip to such a different culture noteworthy.
What they brought back to CLEA's (Civil Leadership and Education in Action, formerly the Child Labor Education and Action Project) involvement with Project Feed the Thousands is an awareness that goes beyond the scope of mere school projects.
For 11 years, a steady group of 20 to 30 students involved in CLEA at the high school have learned about community issues and problems and have worked on ways to change or help those affected by these problems in their community.
Kai-Ming Pu, Student Council president, Arianna Wolfe and Sam Stevens, both co-presidents of CLEA, were among those involved in the student-organized Cuba Project, a trip they happened to travel on together unrelated to CLEA.
Both Stevens and Wolfe have grounded and mature airs about them.
Pu, the student liaison to CLEA, is open, engaging, and willing to share what he has learned.
While in Cuba, Pu said, they met with high school students.
“We told them about students organizing a food drive for the hungry in our community,” he said. “They were amazed. They don't have any hungry people in Cuba. The government feeds them. They had a hard time understanding hunger here.”
Wolfe, a petite young woman with a strong sense of community, speaks with authority and passion of her involvement with CLEA. Her “pet project” is child trafficking.
“I was shocked to learn how prevalent it is, and not just elsewhere in the world,” she said. “It's going on right here in this country.”
In CLEA, “we are mainly concerned with three things: human trafficking, child soldiers, and world hunger,” Wolfe said.
CLEA leaders do a lot of research. They also show films or give presentations at their weekly meetings.
“We try to set up a solid foundation so we know what we are talking about [when we go to schools to teach],” said Momaney. “We try to focus on hunger in the community because it is …tangible and we can do something about it. We can really make a difference, as we've shown every year we've done [food drives].”
“We try to connect the community with international issues,” Wolfe said, including long term projects that take years and many successive CLEA members to achieve.
The group's biggest success came in 2008, when after years of education and lobbying by CLEA members, the Vermont Legislature passed a bill requiring the state to only buy clothing and uniforms that are sweatshop-free, fair trade products.
“We did it,” Wolfe said proudly.
Hunger there and here
In a state with a seemingly low unemployment rate - last reported at 5.7 percent for October, according to the Vermont Department of Labor - people accessing food services has increased.
The Vermont Foodbank has seen a 60-percent increase in usage, and soup kitchens all over Windham County are having a difficult time keeping up with demand for food.
Pu said he had helped at several kitchens recently. “I saw a diversity of people. It wasn't all homeless people. There were families, working families who just couldn't afford food.”
Wolfe said CLEA is about looking at global issues and how they play out in their own community, thus explaining their partnership with Project Feed the Thousands, a community anti-hunger effort co-founded by Larry Smith and George Haynes 17 years ago.
CLEA members also partner with SIT/World Learning students in coordinating and carrying out CLEA's stated goals.
'A good start'
Stevens noted that in the first week of launching Project Feed the Thousands through CLEA, the students collected 75 to 100 pounds of food, or about 400 food items and $100 in cash.
The goal is 2,010 items, “it being 2010 and all,” Pu explained.
“I think we've got a good start. We go all the way through Dec. 25,” Stevens said. “I'm confidant we'll reach our goal.”
Pu noted boxes and a shopping cart with posters of Project Feed the Thousands are in the high school lobby, where students are reminded every day about the need to give. He said a volunteer goes through the lunch room with a can so students can donate pocket change.
“It all counts and it adds up,” he said.
CLEA students are doing what they can to help through their participation in Project Feed the Thousands, but remain aware that hard times affect even that project as family incomes are stretched to the max.
“It's always hard,” said Pu. “With the recession, many students and parents don't have the extra 25 or 50 cents. There's been a definite drop off this year [in donations]. It's hard to expect them to give [in these circumstances]. It's always tough to get food items [from the students] because it's not the first thing on their minds.”
One student in the lobby confirmed that he had not donated anything but he planned to “give 50 cents.”
“There is no socioeconomic divide anymore,” Pu said, in people needing food.
Community service
CLEA was the brainchild of BUHS Social Studies teacher Timothy Kipp and Colin Robinson, a founding student member.
But Kipp refuses credit for the program. “It's all the kids,” he said. “They get all the credit.”
Stevens and Pu share leadership of CLEA with BUHS junior and co-president Nicole Momaney. “We didn't want to have anyone above anyone else. We wanted everyone to have an equal say,” explained Stevens.
CLEA members get community service credit for being involved in these projects, but that seems secondary to their goals, in this case, of helping with Project Feed the Thousands.
All the students interviewed had served in food kitchens; all had been involved in community food projects since elementary school. All showed an understanding of effects of the current economic recession.
Wolfe, Pu and Stevens all showed the somber knowledge that in places like Cuba, the government feeds the people and no one goes hungry.
In Cuba, Pu said, “they don't have homeless people. They don't have people who are hungry. [The Cuban] students found it reassuring that people here are willing to help the hungry.”