Members of an Empire High School community service club will travel to South Africa to meet their pen pals.
The Making Others' Voices Essential Club members will leave on March 9 and spend almost a week in Pretoria, South Africa, attending school with their pen pals, serving at an orphanage for two days and going on a safari.
Twenty-seven people, including 17 students, will make the approximately 26-hour trip and stay with host families when they arrive in the country, said club adviser and English teacher Krista Gypton.
The trip is part of a pen-pal program the club began in fall 2006 after Gypton reconnected with a high school friend who does missionary work in the country, she said.
"I got back in contact with him and wanted to connect the kids with their pen pals," she said. "Then the kids said it would be so good to meet them, so I said, 'Let's go.'"
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Before the club could make the trip, it had to get approval from the school district governing board and figure out how to pay for the plane tickets, which cost more than $1,700 each, she said.
Gypton also had to ask parents to let her take their children to the other side of the world. "I had to convince parents that they could trust me," she said.
The club raised more than $50,000 through a variety of fundraisers, including yard sales, an Octoberfest event and tax-credit donations, she said.
Gypton hopes the trip improves the students' global awareness.
"I'm hoping that this experience impacts them for their life, not just gaining appreciation for what we have, but actually making a choice to be a part of the change," she said. "Global awareness is important in our world."
Junior Brennan Smith, 16, expects the trip to be "life-changing."
"You can pick up trash in the community, but we're going across the world to make a difference in people's lives," said Smith.
"I hope to get perspective, just so I'll stop taking things for granted and see what life is like outside of my normal daily routine," he said.
Smith said he also wants to meet his pen pal, even though he's kind of anxious.
"I'm a little worried if he'll like me," he said.
Junior Audrie Coker, 17, said she looks forward to seeing a part of the world that few Americans visit.
"How many people can say they've been to Africa?" Coker said. "It sounded like a really good opportunity."
Coker said she hopes to make a difference in the lives of her new friends.
Fellow club member Ellie Grant, 16, agreed.
"It's a chance to help people who probably don't get help in their community," said Grant, a junior. "We're going to figure out new ways we can help."
Grant said she hopes to gain a new perspective from the trip while learning a new culture and new values.
"We're actually going to stay with the host families. I think that's important because we're not going as spectators," she said. "We're actually going to live their life and see how it is."
Battle of the bands
The Making Others' Voices Essential Club hopes to make an impact in another part of Africa on Feb. 29 when it hosts a benefit concert to raise money to build a school in Kenya.
A battle of the bands concert will begin at 7 p.m. at Empire High School, 10701 E. Mary Ann Cleveland Way.
The club will donate the money to Free the Children, an outreach organization that has built more than 500 schools around the world.
For more information, contact Krista Gypton at gyptonk@vail.k12.az.us.
