GUEST COLUMNIST: Doing our part for kids in need

Diarrheal dehydration kills 2.2 million children a year. Seven cents buys enough oral rehydration salts to save a child from dying of diarrheal dehydration. Pneumonia kills more than two million children annually. Twenty-five cents buys the necessary antibiotics to treat pneumonia in one child. Measles kills 880,000 children ever year -- more than war and famine combined. Fourteen cents vaccinates a child against this disease. Student volunteers spoke to children at West Philadelphia schools about how they could help other children and handed out the famous orange "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" boxes as part of a month-long education and fundraising campaign. Teachers were provided with free curricular materials to help their students explore children's issues throughout the world. And this year alone, Penn students' efforts raised enough money to save 1,600 children from death by pneumonia. To date, children worldwide have collected more than $100 million. The involved students were members of Penn for UNICEF, a campus organization founded last year that coordinates efforts with the Delaware Valley Chapter of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF -- one of 37 national committees that serve to educate, advocate and fundraise for UNICEF worldwide -- to engage community participation in activities and fundraising. Penn for UNICEF also co-sponsored an on-campus trick-or-treat event with Civic House that teamed up West Philadelphia kids with their tutors. Fraternity and sorority houses hosted face painting, apple bobbing and cookie decorating events for the kids. Everyone had a great time. And on October 30, Penn for UNICEF volunteers made marshmallow spiders with kids at the Please Touch Museum and pasted water tattoos onto kids at the Philadelphia Zoo. We also handed out trick-or-treat information and boxes to the parents. The event was a great success -- the kids had fun and learned about UNICEF projects. These are but a few examples of how Penn for UNICEF strives to reach out to the community. Our philosophy is to show people how even a small effort can bring about change on an international scale. We think globally and act locally. As we all run from class to class, study furiously for midterms and go to non-stop interviews and company presentations, it is a tremendous feeling to stop and realize that the world extends so far beyond the boundaries of Penn campus. It is when a child from West Philadelphia offers his trick-or-treat candy to help the "other poor children who don't have candy" that you realize how easy it is to reach out. When you teach children the value of helping others and when you yourself work hard to help children who could never help themselves, you begin to discover that huge world outside your own and the impact you could have; and many times you smile, knowing that perhaps you have made that world just a little better. Among our most recent events was a coffeehouse on November 19, co-sponsored by Civic House, Delta Upsilon and the Vietnamese Student Association. Several performing arts groups lent their talents to the event, which raised more than $400 for UNICEF -- enough to ensure that thousands of children will live to see adulthood and better their communities. Because UNICEF is financed entirely by volunteer contributions, and operates with a budget that is about 1/10th that of the New York City public school system, the organization needs student help -- and it doesn't take a lot of spare change to change a child's life.

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