Kaelie Drago, Carson Goetz, Bryan Banuelos and Krisine Ballan look over photographs of orphans in Cambodia in Steven Wartman's fifth grade class Tuesday morning at Incline Elementary School.Bonanza Photo -Jen Schmidt
North Lahe Tahoe Bonanza
By Kyle Magin
Bonanza Staff Writer
Each year Steve Wartman, “Mr. Wartman” to his Incline elementary fifth graders, gives his students a difficult vocabulary word which describes them. He tagged this year’s class with “compassionate,” a quality which he said has emerged from a class project on which the students are embarking.
The students are learning about and collecting loose change for “The Center For Children’s Happiness,” a program in Cambodia which rescues children sent to labor at the Steung MeanChey trash dump near the capital city, Phnom Penh.
“These are very compassionate kids,” Wartman said. “They warmed up to the idea of helping these children very quickly, they seem to really like the idea of being helpful to others.”
Life in Steung MeanChey is very different for children than those in Incline Village. Many orphans there live in extreme poverty, Wartman said, working for about 50 cents per day to feed themselves.
“What I think it’s important these children understand is that on what they spend on lunch each day they could clothe and feed these children in the orphanages,” Wartman said.
He said he’d like to shield the children from some of the more brutal realities of life at Steung MeanChey, such as its reputation for being a hub of the human trade, and the terrible toll diseases take on 10 year olds sifting through garbage each day. Many children have been orphaned by the near-constant state of war in Cambodia over the past decades, one which has seen the rise and fall of totalitarian governments and extreme brutality. The dump also leaves children exposed to extreme drug problems later in life.
“We passed around some of the more reasonable pictures and while I don’t want them to internalize it, but I do want them to think about how fortunate they are to have good food, clean air, and to live in a very nice place,” Wartman said.
He also wants them to realize that some of the children who belong to The Center for Children’s Happiness make good on the education’s their change will pay for. He points to one girl, bordering on malnutrition while at the dump, who was eventually adopted and sent to a high-achieving international school in Singapore where she is now fluent in multiple languages.
“I want them to see that if you don’t give up on a child in a dump, you shouldn’t give up on class here,” Wartman said.
Many of the students in Wartman’s class grasp their good fortune relative to their Cambodian counterparts.
Mia Severance said she appreciates what a life in Incline has afforded her and what a little change means for the children at Steung MeanChey.
“I know a lot of kids don’t have a lot of the things that I do, and if I can help them to have some of the things I have it just makes me feel really good inside,” Severance said. “Most of them can’t afford school, so we’re raising money for orphans to have a good home and get an education.”
Classmate Josh Lewis said he feels lucky because life in Steung MeanChey is very different than life here.
“They don’t have a lot of money and they just pick up their clothes from the trash, and they don't eat a lot,” Lewis said. “I think it’s really cool and it feels good to help out other kids around the world.”
So far the children have raised more than $50 for The Center, with a stated goal of raising $400. Wartman said the goal is achievable and each month the children plot out their progress on a graph.
Carson Goetz, another student in the class, said it makes him feel happy that he is doing a good thing for the children in Cambodia.
“The kids in Cambodia are very poor and we want to give them money,” Goetz said.
By Kyle Magin
Bonanza Staff Writer
Each year Steve Wartman, “Mr. Wartman” to his Incline elementary fifth graders, gives his students a difficult vocabulary word which describes them. He tagged this year’s class with “compassionate,” a quality which he said has emerged from a class project on which the students are embarking.
The students are learning about and collecting loose change for “The Center For Children’s Happiness,” a program in Cambodia which rescues children sent to labor at the Steung MeanChey trash dump near the capital city, Phnom Penh.
“These are very compassionate kids,” Wartman said. “They warmed up to the idea of helping these children very quickly, they seem to really like the idea of being helpful to others.”
Life in Steung MeanChey is very different for children than those in Incline Village. Many orphans there live in extreme poverty, Wartman said, working for about 50 cents per day to feed themselves.
“What I think it’s important these children understand is that on what they spend on lunch each day they could clothe and feed these children in the orphanages,” Wartman said.
He said he’d like to shield the children from some of the more brutal realities of life at Steung MeanChey, such as its reputation for being a hub of the human trade, and the terrible toll diseases take on 10 year olds sifting through garbage each day. Many children have been orphaned by the near-constant state of war in Cambodia over the past decades, one which has seen the rise and fall of totalitarian governments and extreme brutality. The dump also leaves children exposed to extreme drug problems later in life.
“We passed around some of the more reasonable pictures and while I don’t want them to internalize it, but I do want them to think about how fortunate they are to have good food, clean air, and to live in a very nice place,” Wartman said.
He also wants them to realize that some of the children who belong to The Center for Children’s Happiness make good on the education’s their change will pay for. He points to one girl, bordering on malnutrition while at the dump, who was eventually adopted and sent to a high-achieving international school in Singapore where she is now fluent in multiple languages.
“I want them to see that if you don’t give up on a child in a dump, you shouldn’t give up on class here,” Wartman said.
Many of the students in Wartman’s class grasp their good fortune relative to their Cambodian counterparts.
Mia Severance said she appreciates what a life in Incline has afforded her and what a little change means for the children at Steung MeanChey.
“I know a lot of kids don’t have a lot of the things that I do, and if I can help them to have some of the things I have it just makes me feel really good inside,” Severance said. “Most of them can’t afford school, so we’re raising money for orphans to have a good home and get an education.”
Classmate Josh Lewis said he feels lucky because life in Steung MeanChey is very different than life here.
“They don’t have a lot of money and they just pick up their clothes from the trash, and they don't eat a lot,” Lewis said. “I think it’s really cool and it feels good to help out other kids around the world.”
So far the children have raised more than $50 for The Center, with a stated goal of raising $400. Wartman said the goal is achievable and each month the children plot out their progress on a graph.
Carson Goetz, another student in the class, said it makes him feel happy that he is doing a good thing for the children in Cambodia.
“The kids in Cambodia are very poor and we want to give them money,” Goetz said.
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