Gavrielle Figueiredo

Staff Writer

Foran graduate, now attending UConn for premed, Valerie Pozdnyakova, has contacted the faculty of Foran High school to help her collect school supplies to help the students and schools of the Dominican Republic. She’d like for the Foran Key Club to host a drive to collect unused school supplies such as pencils, pens, crayons, markers, notebooks, and paper. Alyssa Giacobbe, President of Key Club, says that “we strive to help people, especially children, in need not only in our community but all around the world, as well. With that said, the Dominican Republic School Supply Drive is a perfect fundraiser to help our students achieve the goal of helping people in need”. Pozdnyakova says, “I understand that for most it may be difficult to see the impact of bringing in a box of pencils and dropping it off in a box at the Foran library but, in reality, what they are doing is opening an enormous door of opportunities for a boy or girl who can now go to school and get an education.” The drive will be from December 14 through December 22 and there will be collection boxes in the media center. After all the supplies are collected they will be hand delivered by UConn’s Premedical Society in January. She will be leaving to go to healthcare and mobile clinics in La Piedra, a part of Santo Domingo, and in between will be going to small schools and teaching young children English. There is a donation website on YouCaring.com for UConn Premed society. She wants to make an impact and says, “It must feel so suffocating not being able to respond and have your opinion heard because you cannot write or knowing there’s a story encrypted in letters that you could never know simply because you cannot read. As cliché as it may sound, that is how far a box of pencils can go.”