The challenge: 50 lbs of donations in 48 hours. It was late on Monday night when the Winchendon School Brooklyn community received an email asking for any gently used clothing donations. The only catch-all donations were needed by Wednesday at 3:00 PM because that’s when faculty member, Ms. Harmsen would be heading to the airport for her two-week-long trip to Kenya to help coach the first Kenyan U19 Boys National Lacrosse Team. The U19 Boys World Championships will take place in Ireland this summer.
After several expected donations fell through, Ms. Harmsen had one full bag of donations from the Pingry School in New Jersey and 23KG or 50lbs of space in her other checked bag.
Challenge accepted: By Wednesday afternoon, Ms. Harmsen had received shoes, pants, t-shirts and enough donations to fill her second bag. The Kenya Lacrosse Association has longstanding partnerships with several organizations, and Ms. Harmsen and the other coaches had the opportunity to drop donations off at a girls soccer academy in Nairobi, a children’s home, and to St. Peter’s Boys’ School in Western Kenya.
The trip was such a success Ms. Harmsen is now running a Spring ColLAB giving students the opportunity to correspond with the Kenyan National Team players, fundraise, learn about the country, culture, and complete the ColLAB with a planned trip to Kenya.
