Promised Land 2.0 Plywood and Partnership: Hope Floats...kinda...

Over time, the school moved on to a different location on a small plot of ground funded by a loan and a lease of half lot of land on which to build a plywood building for the kids. When the kids heard that one plywood building was built for them, they all came back with joy and great happiness, believing that their destinies wouldn't be wasted and God made it possible for them to also gain education like the children of the elite and middle class families.

To pay the bank money back was a very hard nut to crack. The bank would sometimes bring soldiers with guns on the campus demanding for their money. It took them almost three years to keep going from one person to another begging for help so as to pay the bank money back. The Pastor almost went to prison because of this and the bank almost damaged everything about the school. It was a very sad moment for all of them. Teachers wouldn't get quite 5 US Dollars at the time for four months and many of them left. This caused a serious challenge to the Pastor’s health because he couldn't eat most often due to the lack of food or money to purchase anything.

At this time, one of the workers in the school, Marie Ballah, sought help from her brother in the USA. Her brother had been fortunate to win an immigration lottery to get to the USA, the land of opportunity. Although he had terrible memories of the 14 year Liberian Civil War, he still held a place in his heart for his homeland and those long-suffering people of Liberia. This man, George Ballah, brought the need of the school to his boss, Darin Pollard, Principal of St. Francis Xavier School in St. Joseph, Missouri. Mr. Ballah was employed as the school’s janitor and saw how many supplies were discarded by the children at the end of the school year. George sought out to retrieve and send discarded school supplies to his home country to help the school children there. He recalled the

extreme poverty of his youth when he was forced to share his only pencil and notebook with his siblings, just to get by in school for one year in Liberia.

After hearing these stories from George, Mr. Pollard dedicated his time and energies as Student Council Sponsor to enlighten and engage the student leaders at St. Francis Xavier. As the students on the Council heard George tell of his desperate childhood they encouraged him to tell the rest of the student body about his life so they could understand his history and plight.

Overtime, the student body began to ask how they could help, beyond donating "leftover" school supplies. The Student Council decided to donate their proceeds from an annual fundraiser called Penny Wars to send financial support to the campus. Over the ten years the school children were able to raise over $25,000. Funds were used to improve the campus with purchasing wooden beams, plywood and zinc roofing panels made from corrugated metal.

While this gift and others from Mr. Pollard's family were able to keep the school "afloat" financially, eventually, keeping it "afloat" became a real problem in the rainy season. Due to the constant rains and lack of drainage on the property, plywood walls would began to become saturated from the standing water and rot from the ground up.

It was time to consider a different location and more sturdy structure, it was time for Promised Land 3.0.

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