Exhibit A is Ian Dolejs, a 16-year-old aspiring Eagle Scout who is collecting crutches for Haitians who were injured or disabled in the January earthquake.
The collection — so far, about 70 pairs of crutches, plus walkers and canes — is Dolejs’ Eagle Scout project. When he wraps up the drive on March 31, he and his dad will drive the donations to Norfolk, Va.-based Physicians for Peace, a non-profit managing a nationwide drive that’s gathered and distributed 850 pairs of crutches for both adults and children, 60 walkers and 24 wheelchairs so far. That sounds like a lot until you compare it to the scale of the crisis: About 6,000 amputations have been performed since the quake.
Dolejs hopes to collect at least 100 pairs of crutches and has created a blog, www.CrutchesforHaiti.info, to explain the project. Grey Stone Baptist Church, 2601 Hillsborough Road; First Presbyterian Church, 305 E. Main Street; and Merritt’s Store & Grill at 1009 S. Columbia St. in Chapel Hill are serving as drop-off points.
Boy and Girl Scouts do a lot for our community, often for years before they tackle the service requirements to earn Eagle Scout status or Gold Awards. Ian Dolejs is just one great example, and we offer him and all of his fellow scouts this week’s Durham Grit Award.
n Durham Tech deserves some praise, too, for turning around a new, short-term curriculum for its JobsNOW program.
The community college made a smart move when it decided to spend almost $85,000 in federal stimulus money on job training sessions with a short turnaround.
Starting in April, the program will offer job-track training sessions for nine different areas, including phlebotomy (the training course in collecting and preparing blood samples filled up in 20 minutes last week), auto detailing, solar technology, sustainable landscaping and emergency medical technician training. All of the nine sessions will wrap up in six months or less and put students out into the job market.
The funds became available when other community colleges failed to get their programs up and running. Although DTCC only found out that the funds were available on Feb. 11, administrators fast-tracked the new program and Durham workers are benefiting.
n This year marks the 90th anniversary of a small, hard-working group of volunteers: The Durham Kiwanis Club.
The civic club, which raises money to support education, has dwindled in recent years, but a devoted core group has made sure that children at three Durham elementary schools have extra resources.
In addition to giving a dictionary to every third grader, the Durham Kiwanis Club funds the Terrific Kids program. You’ve probably seen the bumper stickers — you’ve probably seen them parodied, too — but not many people know how they’re awarded. Each quarter, a teacher from each classroom designates one student who has excelled in an area other than academics. Some kids are terrific for their perfect attendance records, others are terrific because they get their homework done every day, and others are terrific citizens.
We’re not sure there’s a bumper sticker for it, but on its 90th anniversary, we want the Durham Kiwanis Club’s members to know that we think they’re terrific, too.
