Charles City resident joins international sorority for Haitian school dedication

By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

When Charles City resident Susan Jacob arrives at Imagine Missions Orphanage in March, the newly completed secondary school will already be a familiar home for students.

Jacob and 14 national members of Alpha Delta Kappa will attend the dedication of the building, after the international sorority raised more than $56,000 to fund the building’s construction.

Imagine Missions may have never come to the educator sorority’s attention without the work of Floyd County-based group Homes for Haiti.

The group had returned from an earlier trip to Imagine Missions two years ago when Jacob asked Homes for Haiti organizer Susan Ayers how Alpha Delta Kappa could help.

“Because some of my friends went with the Homes for Haiti group, I had been interested in it and had known about it,” said Jacob, who is a representative of the North Central region on the International Alpha Delta Kappa World Understanding Committee. Jacob represents nine U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

“When they came back (I asked), ‘Is there anything Alpha Delta Kappa can do?'” Jacob said.

There was.

After speaking with the treasurer and the president at Imagine Missions, Jacob felt a planned-for secondary school building would be a contending project for an Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation grant, which fundraises over two years for a project voted on by international members.

Projects go through rounds of scoring by Alpha Delta Kappa representatives before the top three are put to a vote for international members. Once approved, the entire society kicks fundraising into gear on the project.

Jacob, Ayers, Joy Hall and Julie DeBower asked for $50,000 in the initial grant application, titled Project TEACH (Training, Educating and Affirming the Children of Haiti). Through 2016-2017, members pulled together local fundraisers to surpass that grant goal at the end of 2017.

The sorority’s grant funded local Haitian contractors to start construction in October, and the building held first classes in mid-January.

“It’ll be fun to see everything come to fruition,” Jacob said. “We did a lot of local fundraising here. We had a garage sale a couple of years ago and we raised over $1,000.”

Aid didn’t end with the funds to construct the school, either. Alpha Delta Kappa worked with the Midwest Missions Distribution Center to send desks to Haiti — they ended up sending 68 desks, assembled by Homes for Haiti volunteers while there in early January.

Jacob and the other Alpha Delta Kappa members are also transporting bags of supplies for school teachers, handmade based off of a pattern provided by Midwest Missions Distribution Center.

While the trip will celebrate the school’s dedication, Jacob and other members will also lead professional development opportunities for staff members working at Imagine Missions.

“We wanted to help the teachers,” Jacob said. “We’re doing teacher training with the staff, 35 teachers total, from first grade through high school. We could talk about everything from administration to discipline and learning strategies.”

Jacob is still accepting donations to take to Imagine Missions before her March trip. Community members interested in donating can write a check to the Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation for Project TEACH, or leave a cash donation with Jacob’s name on it at Trinity United Methodist Church in Charles City.

Now that Project TEACH is wrapping up, Alpha Delta Kappa is focused on the next initiative. Applications are due March 1 for the next grant.

“We will get the proposals that have been submitted this year and we’ll score those, and we’ll submit those to the international executive board,” Jacob said. “Then we’ll start fundraising for the next project.”

It’s a mission that keeps on giving, she said.

“One of the best things about working for the school is, the hope for the country is in educating the children,” Jacob said. “They’ll have more opportunities to break the cycle of poverty.”