Mennonite Central Committee is challenging people in donate 10,000 school kits for 10,000 children 
around the world in August. The School Kit Challenge has the extra incentive of a photo contest.

Supplies that are needed include pencils, pens, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, ruler, colored pencils and four spiral-bound notebooks. Details are at mcc.org/school-kit-challenge. They are combined in a cloth, drawstring bag, which is useful for distribution and for a student’s organization.

In many countries, children don’t have access to these basic supplies because of poverty, conflict or disaster. Last year, MCC sent out nearly 90,000 school kits to children on five continents.

For extra fun and a challenge, MCC is offering two free pizza parties: one for the most creative photo of the school kits donated and one for the for the most school kits shown in a photo. Post the photos on Facebook or Instagram, tag @mccpeace and use the hashtag #MCCSchoolKitChallenge by Aug. 31 to be entered.

Students at Rumbek Comboni Primary School in Rumbek, South Sudan, could be among those who benefit from the kits collected. Parents struggle to find school supplies at the local market — and if they do find them, they could cost more than an entire month’s wages for the items in a single kit.

Mary Aniong Achien, 16, is a student at Comboni. She’s in her eighth and final year of primary school and wants to be a doctor when she graduates. She’s received a school kit each of the last two years at Comboni and said it’s made a huge difference for her.

“How do you take notes without notebooks? I did not understand well in class before I had them, but now I can take notes in all my classes,” she said. “And the bag makes everything easy to carry around — otherwise we just leave our materials on the ground.”

Achien knows how difficult it would be for her parents to buy her such supplies. “Our mothers are not educated, so it is very difficult for them to get enough money. But with the school kit, my parents can buy food instead of books,” she said. “May God bless the people who gave us these books.”

Of the 2,000 students that attend Comboni, most will receive one school kit each year. Principal Sister Lydia Assenga said the school kits’ impact on students is clear.

“When I arrived here in 2019, I could go into the classes and see no students writing at all. Now, the students with the school kits are the ones who write,” Assenga said. “When parents want to send their children here, we can assure them their children will write, and that is a big incentive. God has given our school a special gift.”