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WHY WE'RE DIFFERENT! |
| 1. One hundred percent of your donation goes to the people of Zambia! Everyone who works on this fund is a volunteer. |
| 2. We help where the need is the greatest No one in America can be classified as Extremely poor! You will be helping the worlds poorest people |
| 3.Education is a cure, not a band aid |
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In the last six years we have had so many newspaper articles written about the Zambia's Scholarship Fund; there are too many to name. You can look through the archives of: Salt Lake's Deseret Morning News, Ogden's Standard Examinar, Logan's Herald, and Brigham City's Box Elder's News Journal. But, this was one of Peggy's favorites...
It was written about a school in Providence, Utah, that took eight years to raise a million pennies. The story was so huge it made national news on the Good Morning America show. Laura, Peggy's sister, called Peggy and said you have to find out where this school is they have collected ten thousand dollars and want to use the money to help build a school in Africa. Peggy watched the ten o'clock news that night and happened to hear the name of the school mentioned she quickly called the school and got on their list of charities who had seen the program.
After the pennies were raised, someone had to count them. The Bank of Utah took on that challenge and then came the decision of how to best use the pennies. Charities from all over the state were invited to show the students of River Heights Elementary a 20 minute presentation about their charity.
Imagine the joy when Peggy got the phone call that said the Zambia's Scholarship Fund was chosen without hesitation. "The vote was one hundred percent in your favor, Peggy. I mean it. All the students and the faculty voted for you!" The River Heights Elementary School began the ball rolling for Utah schools. Can you get the ball rolling at your school?
Pictured: Vesna Jenkins (River Heights Principal), Musoka Kazenene, and Peggy Rogers as well as Jason Tolioni and Scott Parkinson, both with Bank of Utah.
Because of River Heights Elementary School, you can make a donation for the Zambia's Scholarship Fund at any Bank of Utah.
Deseret Morning News 1/2/2006  By Tiffany EricksonPeggy Rogers is set on making changes in Africa. Lofty? Maybe, but over the past six years she has made sure that 900 students in Zambia were able to go to high school, many future teachers received a proper education, and 38 schools are operating and able to pay a teacher. Because of her latest efforts, around 40,000 books are being sent to Zambia for students in classrooms that, at best, have only seats and a chalkboard. "We have the chance to bring education to a different part of the world, and I think we are going to see some positive changes there," Rogers said. Twenty-five years ago in college, Rogers met a friend who came from Zambia. After years of writing, Rogers made the journey for a visit and found poverty like she had never seen before. She said out of the nine million people in the country, only 400,000 have paying jobs. Because of costs, only eight percent make it to high school. Due to disease and the lack of health care, life expectancy is only 35 years. Rogers said there is a shortage of schools, teachers, and learning material, and in many schools students haven't even laid eyes on a book. Upon her return to the United States, Rogers got to work gathering sponsors to help Zambia schools, calling it the Zambia's Scholarship Fund. Founded six years ago and run by Rogers and her daughter, the fund has helped 60 college students and 100 high school students attend school, and they have been able to adopt 38 elementary schools. On her third visit to Zambia, Rogers stopped by 10 of the American-sponsored elementary schools. Teaching materials were nearly nonexistent and there wasn't a book in sight. "The kids are excited about going to school, but it is hard to keep their attention when teachers are without any material," Rogers said. So after hearing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints received many of the old textbooks from local schools, she asked the church for a shipment of books to send to Zambia. Rogers raised the $13,000 for shipment, and the church kicked in around 40,000 pounds of used textbooks — both elementary- and secondary-level books. The load was shipped to the northernmost parts of Zambia — the poorest part of the country. To continue this effort, Rogers and volunteers are leaving for Zambia to deliver more books to the schools. If all goes well, they plan to send book shipments each year as well as continue to sponsor students and adopt schools. "We take for granted the opportunity to have an education whether we want it or not," Rogers said. "Can you believe just holding a book for the first time — if we can just bring a little bit of hope and keep this cycle going, I think we are going to see miracles coming from it." Families can also get involved by sponsoring a student for $20 a month, which also affords an opportunity to create a relationship with the student through letters and pictures. Donors can pick who they want to sponsor by perusing piles of scholarship applications from the Zambia student hopefuls.
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