greenLockers » inspiring stories

Great news from Columbia

Ted Bryant — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:47:21 +0000

I just wanted to share with everyone that we recieved news a few nights ago that greenLockers materials have made it down to a village just south of Bogota, Columbia. I am posting the email:

“I [the author of the email] went down with one other person and we lived in Los Altos de la Florida, Colombia (just south of Bogota). The community is mostly internally displaced people and most people have been living there for 10-18 years. Even though they are very close to Bogota (that has 8 million+ people) they do not have running water, sewer system, or a good education system. Some are able to go to school but most do not.

During our stay, we each lived with a family and taught every morning in the “library” (which also doubled as a garage for a community truck). We organized 70 children from a few hours every morning and they ranged from 1 year to 14 years old. The picture of the Christmas tree is filled with ornaments we made one day. They wrote lots of letters, made Christmas drawings, copied the alphabet & numbers, and did a few math problems. It was a wonderful experience and I am yearning to go back and teach! The picture of the three adults is myself, Ross (whom I traveled with) and Norma. Norma founded Coda a Coda and helped set up our stay in the community. Thank you so much for everything you do and all the school supplies greenLockers collected—it is much needed! The kids loved it!!”

Here are some pictures

Here are some of the kids that received greenLockers supplies singing Jingle Bells – they sound GREAT!!!

This is great!! I LOVE getting stories like this – keep them coming in!

Equipping students. . . moving the world forward. . . .

Stories: Distribution Day Inspiration

Ted Bryant — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:43:07 +0000

The joys of not ever knowing how something will turn out is always nerve racking for me, but also knowing that God is always working with you and being on your side is the best feeling of all time! The distribution day was yet very helpful to me to understand what it is like to run a business by yourself. I had a great experience being able to communicate with local organizations, give a helping hand with moving supplies to the vehicles, and got the opportunity to get interviewed by ABC news. I would like to share a personal story that touched my heart while I was working. A young lady Amanda Green from Volinia Outcome School came and the first thing she started to do was tear up when I explained the warehouse tour to her. Her story with the school is kids whose parents are in jail or getting ready to appear in court and the kids are in trouble also and no one to teach them. There is about 75 kids that go to this dirt road, 1 school hallway with only 5 teachers. She said that last year they all had no supplies and the 5 teachers had to use their pocket money to supply all them. Wow how hard, especially when they don’t make a lot of money anyways for teaching. She was so happy and thankful to hear about greenLockers and how much of a blessing it was for her to be here. She was also pregnant and suffering in the heat at the warehouse. I kindly helped her out finding her folders, notebooks, and getting ALL the loose leaf paper together for her in the boxes while she went through the novels. God did such a breath taking moment for me and I just realized how amazing this young pregnant lady was for loving her job even through it’s with kids that don’t ever was to learn or be at school. She has been there 6 years and never wasn’t to leave she claims. I helped her put all the boxes into her car and gave her a big hug and told her how great of a person she was. When she took off all I could say out loud was “God you are so awesome and amazing”! I honestly said it about 6-7 times around the warehouse.

Stories: What just one school can do

Ted Bryant — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:58:31 +0000

I (Lindsey Hyduk-intern for Ted) was able to take charge by myself with a local Catholic grade school in South Bend this past school year and this was Holy Family. Here is exactly what only one school can do for greenLockers: Holy Family donated almost anything you could think of and even the teachers donated things of theirs that they didn’t need any more like helping aids for the children. I worked with Debbie and she was so great and helpful to this pick up service I did today and she told me that they would love to keep up the donating process for the future and that was so encouraging to hear!!! Holy Family was a big success to our “distribution day” and to hear from Debbie that the children were so involved in the donating process was such an amazing blessing from God. To be able to hear that you’re whole school to effect into this process with joy and fun is great. I would like to personally thank Debbie for such a great effort that she put into our locker clean our days! After I was able to get everything into my car, which was FULLY LOADED!!! The final stop was to the warehouse to drop the bins off.

It is because of people like this. . .

Ted Bryant — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:19:30 +0000

I get the credit, and yet. . . . I feel like I am the least deserving. greenLockers as a movement is not powered by me, but by countless individuals that decided to be a part of equipping students. . . moving the world forward. Here are some of these individuals that have made major contributions in just the past 2 weeks!

1. Heather – one of my students at Notre Dame who is paving a way for me to speak tonight to the service commissioners of the ND dorms as well as to the ND Circle K club members later on this month.

2. Theresa (an accounting manager) from Dowagiac, MI – who called up a few weeks ago wanting to donate around 200 binders (in about 20 more white bags that you see in the picture) from her work that was going out of business.

3. Verna Davis from South Bend who wanted to donate all of the slightly-used crayons that she had been collecting from her grandchildren over the years (the shoebox in the picture above)

4. Barb from South bend who stopped by Bethel and dropped off some more recylcing bins from a few neighbors (above in picture)

5. Richard in Granger who is wanting to organize a neighborhood collection drive for recyling bins AND school supplies - - be tuning in if you are a resident of Wedgewood in Granger

6. Dennis from Holy Family grade school in South Bend – he wants in. . . one of many people serving in area schools that are bringing their schools on board!

5. Colin – V.P. of Penn’s NHS – he wants NHS at Penn to be in too. . . . just a few students at Penn!!! – should be an amazing partnership

I am amazed and excited about the power of greenLockers to help change the lives of hundreds if not thousands of students THIS YEAR – those that receive AND those that give. It is March, which means less than 3 months until locker clean-out!!! I am grateful for everyone who is supporting greenLockers – we are already gearing up for what should be an amazing Spring!!