Article!!!!

That's right, the article came out today!! They only used one picture, and it wasn't a bad one (surprisingly!) although you can't see it here (I copied and pasted it from the website- I censored it to keep my last name and town private):

May 3, 2007

****** teen collects pajamas for orphans in Ethiopia

Kids in Kenya are going to get pajamas in the next few months, thanks to donations from *****ians. The pajamas were collected as part of the Sweet Dreams Project by Susanna *******, a sophomore at ****** High School.

In a recent interview with The ********, Susanna said she started the collection for a personal reason, but it quickly grew into a much larger endeavor.

“My family is adopting a little girl from Ethiopia,” Susanna said. “We’re really excited about it.”

It wasn’t just excitement in the air. Susanna got inspired to help an orphanage in Africa.

“What I did was start to brainstorm ways to donate” to an orphanage that is home to children who are HIV/AIDS positive, she said.

This past December, she called an orphanage, A Hope for Children, and found it was in need of pajamas. The orphanage has a headquarters in the United States, but is actually in Ethiopia.

“From there, I talked to the head of the orphanage in Ethiopia,” Susanna said.

Then she began to e-mail the principals of the ****** schools to see if she could hold her PJ collection at one of them. She ended up requesting the assistance of students at **** ****.

“I actually got a really overwhelming response,” Susanna said, she received 130 pairs of pajamas. “In total, I have about 200.”

There are 87 kids at A Hope for Children in Ethiopia. Each child at the orphanage will be able to get one pair, and Susanna will donate some pajamas to another Ethiopian orphanage where Susanna’s soon to be sister is living.

Whatever is left over, Susanna said, will be donated to a shelter in *******.“They are going to go to people who need them. I think that I would’ve been able to get more ... but we are taking them ourselves,” she said. The *******s are scheduled to pick up baby Eraye — Susanna’s new sister — within the next month. That’s when they will take the pajamas.

The project is just the beginning, Susanna said. She hopes she could continue collecting for orphanages through her senior year; that’s why she chose this to be her senior interest project, though she won’t be a senior for another school year.

A senior interest project is a not required half-year project offered at the *HS. Lisa ******, a business teacher at *HS as well as the senior interest project coordinator, said that the project gives students a chance to come up with their own ideas of something to learn and master.

Beginning in their junior year, students have the chance to learn about what a senior interest project is and whether they want to register for the course their senior year.

Once students pick their idea, they must state what they plan on doing, and how they plan on doing it. If approved by Ms. ******, the students are then paired with a mentor, a professional in the field in which the student wants to work.

You'll also notice that they said that they said that the pajamas were going to an orphanage in Kenya. Obviously that's wrong, but the rest of the article was accurate, so I'll let them get away with it ;-)

I also got my shots today. A painful reminder of good things to come!