Youth Council provides Kinlichee youth with filled backpacks
Megan Lee, Jaydius Willie and Orvianna Chee (from left to right) pose with their new backpacks during a backpack drive at Kin Da Lichi’i Olta’ on Friday. The third graders were excited to have new bags and said they liked the colors. The Morning Star Leaders Youth Council out of Phoenix sponsored the drive. (Times photo – Stacy Thacker)
Megan Lee, Jaydius Willie and Orvianna Chee (from left to right) pose with their new backpacks during a backpack drive at Kin Da Lichi’i Olta’ on Friday. The third graders were excited to have new bags and said they liked the colors. The Morning Star Leaders Youth Council out of Phoenix sponsored the drive. (Times photo – Stacy Thacker)
KINLICHEE, Ariz.
About 130 students filled the gym at Kin Da Lichi’i Olta’ and anxiously awaited their surprise Friday.
When the cardboard boxes were opened, backpacks of all colors and sizes were revealed and students lined up to pick out their bags.
The Morning Star Leaders Youth Council out of Phoenix held the backpack drive after an employee of the school wrote them about the need of the students in Kinlichee.
Aaron Brown, the Information Technology tech and volunteer firefighter at the school, said he wrote a proposal to the youth council on behalf of the students because he felt they deserved it.
Brown said that students come from homes with no running water or electricity and dirt roads are almost impossible to drive on when the weather gets bad.
He said a lot of the students are waking up early to help with cattle and sheep or hauling water.
“Some of them still live in hogans,” he said, adding that there are a lot of hard working students at the school.
While he acknowledged not all the students have the same living situation, he believes they all are deserving of a bag and he was happy to see all of them get a bag.
Students look through their new backpacks in the gym at Kin Da Lichi’i Olta’ on Friday. The Morning Star Leaders Youth Council out of Phoenix held the drive after an employee of the school wrote them about the need of the students in Kinlichee, Ariz. (Times photo – Stacy Thacker)
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