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In a special worship service on Sunday morning, March 4, 2001, the altar of Prescott Memorial Baptist Church will be surrounded by dozens of brightly colored boxes of books on their way to children in the Philippines.
The service, which begins at 10:45 a.m., will feature a live telephone hook-up with a 22-year-old church member, who will speak to the congregation on a cell phone from her hut in central Luzon, where she works as a Peace Corps volunteer.
The church member, Meredith Walsh, a 1996 graduate of White Station High School in Memphis, left for her Peace Corps assignment in July 2000, two months after graduating from Smith College in Northampton, MA. She will remain in the Philippines until the fall of 2002.
Ms. Walsh lives on the outskirts of Bayombong, a town located in the mountainous region of Luzon. She works with elementary students and their teachers, helping them with their English and in other ways.
Situated in an area once famous for its head- hunters, Bayombong today is the capital of Nueva Vizcaya province, a rural area accessible by a six-hour bus ride from Manila.
While working with school children and also volunteering at a local orphanage, Ms. Walsh noticed a shortage of children's books. Some textbooks are available in the schools, where classes typically have 50 students, but the children have few books for pleasure reading. In consultation with local educators ("a group of truly dedicated professionals," Ms. Walsh notes), she is starting a school library, with books and money donated by family and friends back home in Memphis and other places. Among the project's other supporters are the Alpha Chi honor society at Christian Brothers University (Chapter president Maria Teresa Blanco, faculty sponsor Dr. Malinda Fitzgerald). Books are also being donated by Dr. Jim Carter, who is retiring as a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Memphis.
The Commercial Appeal publish an article referencing this service project. Read it here.
Images from the Service Project
Return to the Tennessee Theta Chapter Alpha Chi homepage.