A gym full of old desks and chairs gathering dust has become the answer to prayers on the South Side and will help shape lives much farther away.
Orland School District 135 officials had a surplus of school furniture and reached out to schools that could use the items. The donations were welcomed by two Chicago Catholic grade schools, an Islamic girls school in Bridgeview and The Joseph Assignment, a Matteson nonprofit that builds schools in Africa.
“The children go to school during the day; the parents learn to read and to write at night. We’re giving them hope and opportunity,” Alexis Felder, founder and CEO of The Joseph Assignment, told District 135 officials at recent board meeting. “We appreciate your partnership. The school supplies that you’ve given us — the desks, the chairs, the file cabinets — those items will be placed in schools that we will build in Liberia, in Sierra Leone and in Ghana.”
Felder presented District 135 officials with a plaque thanking them for the more than 1,200 used furnishings, which also include bookcases, cabinets, chalkboards and easels. The nonprofit more recently picked up 20 cases of retired textbooks.
“We’re very blessed that we’re able to donate this to organizations that helps so many students in need,” said District 135 board President Joe La Margo. “It’s our honor.”
Credit for the program went to Dean Casper, District 135’s contracts and purchasing analyst, as well as finance director Carl Forn and longtime facilities director Dan Werfelman.
St. Ailbe School on Chicago’s Southeast Side also received surplus items, as did St. Gall School on the Southwest Side.
“St. Gall’s added a kindergarten (class). They took on about 18 more kindergarten children,” Casper said. “They were going to have to turn those kindergarten kids away.”
Casper said a St. Gall official told him she prayed on the subject and found his email offering the surplus equipment in her in-box the next morning. The school accepted desks, tables and chairs.
Donated lab tables were used to add a junior high science program at Aqsa School in Bridgeview, which also received lunch tables, library kiosks, desks and bookcases.
District 135 also gave 65 surplus metal folding chairs to Orland Park Veterans’ Commission for event seating.