Over the past winter, several churches, schools, and a local trade school completed a CVAI goal of providing materials to fill a 20-foot shipping container for our project in Cameroon. For several years CVAI has been collecting and storing donated textbooks from Thomson Publishers and Goodheart-Willcox. We also had a large donation of educational materials from K’NEX and Gibson Electronics.

In 2007, we received several thousand text and library books and some tools from the Episcopal Academy. We thought it was time to move ahead with a wider tool drive in the fall of 2008.

Mr. Jonathan Ramos of Philadelphia purchased a 20-foot shipping container and we were off and running. CVAI friends Dave McDowell and Alan Smith lead the tool drive. A school district donated 15 no longer used sewing machines. Several Presbyterian churches in the Philadelphia area, including New Life Glenside, New Life Philadelphia and Leverington all collected new and used hand tools. These ranged from old hand saws to table saws to a wheelbarrow and a generator. We had a very large donation of two large wooden crates of hand and power tools from the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades in Media, PA. A small hardware store in Philadelphia that was going out of business donated many materials.

On March 26, about a dozen volunteers showed up in Glenside on a misty morning to transfer 15,000 pounds of materials from a storage container to the shipping container in an allotted 2 hour time period. A local beverage business donated a forklift and driver for that time period. We would not have made it without that help. The container was packed to the brim and sealed by noon for its journey to Newark, Europe and the Port of Douala, Cameroon. After some lengthy delays in the port, the container was safely delivered to Bamenda where it is under watchful eyes of the Cameroon Baptist Convention until the materials are used.

We want to thank the dozens of friends who made this project possible. It is not possible for me to mention all of those who contributed their finances or materials in this short article. Many of you who have contributed to CVAI helped pay for the shipping expenses and get these invaluable materials to Cameroon. We also want to thank New Life Thrift Store in Glenside for their generous grant to pay a significant portion of the shipping. Thank you to our supporters for making this happen.