MINOOKA, Ill. — Until last summer, Maki didn’t have a pair of shoes that fit. Her feet were too big. The 13-year-old girl wore a woman’s size 12, something that simply couldn’t be found at Botshobello, a mountaintop orphanage in rural South Africa’s
MINOOKA, Ill. — Until last summer, Maki didn’t have a pair of shoes that fit. Her feet were too big. The 13-year-old girl wore a woman’s size 12, something that simply couldn’t be found at Botshobello, a mountaintop orphanage in rural South Africa’s Garankuwa Township. Maki moved there after working as a child prostitute to support other members of her impoverished family. So she made do with flip-flops that really were too small for her feet. And then Maki met Jennifer Fleming of Minooka. Fleming, 29, is one of the forces behind Building A Global Community, a not-for-profit group that makes yearly trips to South Africa to help the poor, the sick and the hungry. Fleming and Angela DeCraene, 26, also of Minooka, began the project nine years ago, and over time, others have joined them. Like Maki, Fleming wears a size 12 shoe. When she heard the story last summer, Fleming simply took off her New Balance shoes and gave them to the young girl. Maki was delighted. "When we go back this year, I’ll take her a few more pairs — brand-new ones," Fleming said. On July 29, Fleming, DeCraene and 15 others once again will fly to South Africa. They will spend 18 days planting vegetable gardens, rehabbing schools and distributing food, diapers, clothing and toothbrushes to needy people, particularly the residents of Botshobello and another orphanage. This year, they want to bring 800 toothbrushes and 1,000 pairs of children’s underwear to give the children. They are looking for other organizations in the community to help with that part of the project by collecting, for example, the boxers, briefs and panties. But before the group can fly to South Africa, they need money, and a lot of it. It will cost at least $65,000 to accomplish this year’s goals. "So far, we have about half of it, about $30,000," Fleming said. When the group returns to Africa this summer, Sarah Correa, 29, of Chicago, an executive assistant for CARE USA, will travel with them for the first time. For her, it will be a mini-version of the Peace Corps, a group she has long wanted to join. "I work at a nonprofit, but I don’t get to go out in the field and help the people we help," she said. "This experience is going to be really special for me because I’ll be able to do it, hands-on." For the past several months, Correa has been working to raise money for her part of the trip. She set her goal at $5,000, and in March hosted a musical benefit featuring several bands. "I raised $700 on a rainy Tuesday night — I was really pleased with that, at $10 a head," she said. Although Correa is thrilled to be working with Building a Global Community, with any luck, this year’s trip won’t be quite as exciting as the one last year. On their second day in South Africa, Fleming and the others went to Botshobello to begin working. As they discussed the job, a director from the orphanage appeared with some bad news: a dangerous brush fire had started on the mountain and was burning in a circle around the buildings. The children had to be moved to safety. "Before she even finished talking — I was so proud — our team dropped everything: cameras, all their supplies, and started running up the mountain. We pulled the children out of their homes and sent them down to the school, where it was safer," Fleming remembered. They grabbed pieces of clothing, drenched them with water and began beating out the flames by hand. It took hours, and at one point, the pants worn by DeCraene caught fire. "We had to beat it out," Fleming said. "But we got it under control, and all the children were safe." ______ Copyright 2009 Associated Press, The (Joliet) Herald-News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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