Pens, pencils go to Africa
By Joann Groff joann@theacorn.com

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers WRITE STUFF—Los Cerritos Middle School sixth-grader Shane Bekian shows the thousands of pens and pencils he has collected for children who need them.

Shane Bekian loves playing soccer, surfing and skiing. He plays the drums and finds himself glued to the computer screen playing video games every so often.

But Shane is no average sixth-grader.

In less than three weeks, the 11-year-old collected more than 8,000 pens and pencils for children in Africa.

“They don’t really have anything to better their lives and better their learning education,” Shane said. “They need something to write and learn with and jot down notes.”

It started when a family friend of the Bekians returned from a trip to Africa. He described the poverty he saw and told Shane about the children who would beg for pens and pencils for school.

“He went to Kenya and Tanzania,” Shane said. “And he told us it was really hard to be around all these poor kids. It made me want to do something.”

Shane’s parents drove him around their Lang Ranch community, and he dropped fliers in about 350 mailboxes. He wanted writing materials and listed a due date and his drop-off address.

When the time came, the Bekian family took another loop around their neighborhood to see if people had left pencils on their own doorsteps or mailboxes, just to be sure they didn’t miss any.

In two weeks, Shane collected more than 5,000 pencils and pens. But he didn’t stop there. Shane returned to Lang Ranch Elementary—from which he had recently graduated—and asked for help. About 2,000 more pencils came from Shane’s alma mater. More were collected from the parents of Shane’s friends and local businesses.

Although Shane ran the whole operation, he credits his family with helping him.

“It was pretty much a family project,” Shane said. “I have to say thanks to my little brother. Once we collected everything, he grouped the pens in groups of 50 so we would know how

many we had. When you get to 8,000, that’s a lot of groups of 50.”

Through the Bekians’ church, Calvary Community, the supplies will be heading to Africa soon. They will be delivered to an orphanage called the Jubilee Children’s Center near Nairobi, Kenya.The children who stay there, ages 3 to 12, have lost both parents to AIDS.

“I have so much and there’s a lot of kids all over the world that don’t have much at all,” Shane said.

“I’ve always wanted to do a project like this where I could help people,” he said.

Shane said his pen drive has inspired some of his friends to want to put together similar projects—and he’ll be happy to help out.

“It just makes me feel great inside that I’ve done something,” Shane said. “It makes me feel like a better person.”

Will Shane keep the pen drive alive? “Totally,” Shane said.“I’m definitely doing it again next year.”