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Local Community Impact
A core part of the Friends of John Paul School mission is that all development efforts for the school include a positive impact for the local Chelekura and broader Pallisa communities. We hope to accomplish this by utilizing local labor workers for construction and campus development, employing locals for non-teaching staff and where qualified, as teachers, assisting with local business development, purchasing locally as much as possible, and by the inclusion of the community in all water access and distribution projects. of the non teaching staff are locals of the food supplies for the entire campus are sourced locally Locals can now easily retrieve their daily water from a 4…
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Campus-wide Water Distribution Project Complete!
We are very excited to announce that the JPSS water project is now complete! Access to clean water has been an ongoing journey since the beginning of John Paul Secondary School in 2007. Initially our students and teachers would walk long distances to reach the community well in order to fill their Jerry cans of water needed for drinking and bathing. After several attempts, we were successful in digging a functioning well on campus in 2015 which made the journey to retrieve much shorter for students and the local community alike. The hand pump served the campus well for a long time, but as the school community continued to grow,…
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A Fun Evening and Successful Fundraiser!
The 9th Annual Wine Tasting Fundraiser, benefitting the students at John Paul Secondary School, held October 5th at the chic Silver Spoon Ristorante was attended again this year by a SOLD-OUT crowd! In addition to our many loyal returning guests, we were pleased to welcome 25 new guests for the first time! This year’s event was also very profitable, raising an amazing $34,500! Once again, the Silver Spoon provided five delicious small plates which were accompanied by five outstanding wines. Back by popular demand were a variety of beautiful African baskets from the local areas in Uganda. These baskets were offered for sale as an additional way for guests to…
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Giving Tuesday 2023
What is Giving Tuesday? Giving Tuesday is a global initiative that encourages people and organizations to donate their time and money to charitable causes on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving in the United States. It was created in 2012 and has grown every year. Once again this year, Friends of John Paul School will be reaching out to all of our wonderful donors on Giving Tuesday. Our campus is bursting at the seams and your donations so gratefully be used to provide the basics for all of our current and new students including an additional water source, more classroom space, required curriculum changes and many more things. No need to wait…
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Our Trip to JPSS – by Linda and Brian Dinsmore
Upon our arrival, the Berrigan Activity center was packed with enthusiastic school leaders, teachers, parents and students. Gratitude was in the air and expressed through prayer, singing and beautiful smiles. Our campus tour included a discussion with the water project manager, whose passion for the project was evident as he explained their progress. The new Comerford Family Kitchen is another accomplishment all orchestrated by Vincent Mutyaba, our engineer. Our students are proud of their dorms, however more housing is needed not only for our students, but also for our teachers. Our dedicated teachers and school leaders deserve private housing in order for them to rest and rejuvenate in order to…
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Distribution Day!
You, our amazing donors, responded to our call to be able to bring supplies and gear for each of our students, teachers and staff (over 700 people!). Charity wish list orders of sports bras, socks, and drawstring bags poured into Paul and Nancy’s house, and gently used ties were donated by, in some cases, the hundreds! All were carefully packed into 16 large duffle bags that were divided up between the board members traveling to Uganda. Once at the school, we had the whole of Berrigan Hall and all the tables to lay out the items so the students could proceed in and select one of each. Our visiting team…
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The Commissioning and Blessing of the New Multipurpose Building
From the moment we approached the JPSS campus, and our eyes caught a glimpse of the new Multipurpose Building towering over the tree tops, our eyes teared up and our hearts were overwhelmed with joy. Where were we?? Surely, this can’t be rural Chelekura?? And, although we had been receiving photos of the various stages of the building process for over a year, we were not prepared for the enormity and grandeur this building brought to the JPSS campus and the community of Chelekura! It was an unbelievably gorgeous sight to behold!! The Blessing and official Commissioning of the new Multipurpose Building and New Kitchen took place on Saturday, July…
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Our Trip to JPSS – by Bob and Debbie Clark
Though we are relative “newcomers” to the John Paul Secondary School board, we are so very thankful that we have become involved. Sharing our time, along with “some” talent and treasures for the benefit of JPSS, has been rewarding above and beyond ever imagined. Our feeling that we have been blessed by being involved were confirmed with our recent visit to the school located in a very remote area in Eastern Uganda We traveled with the Berrigan family along with the Comerfords … fellow board members and great travel companions. To reach Chelekura, Uganda (where the school is located), we traveled unpaved, often very rutted roads, but thankfully our experienced…
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My Trip to JPSS – by Shannon Carrier
My name is Shannon, and I’m Paul and Nancy’s oldest daughter. Obviously I’ve heard about the school since they first rolled the architectural plans out on our dining room table to show us what they envisioned. I was lucky enough to travel this summer with my parents to Uganda, and after a few days of driving through many cities and towns we passed many different schools and hundreds of children, of all ages, walking every morning and afternoon back and forth to school. As we drove to JPSS, we headed down some very bumpy “roads”, watched families work in the rice fields, waved to children that came out of their…
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My Trip to JPSS – by Emma Carrier
My first impression of the school was taken aback. I obviously had seen pictures of the school and the campus, but seeing it in real life and seeing it all being run as a full community, was amazing. The students were so welcoming and curious, as was I, but I was able to go and talk and get to know a lot of them to see how they lived their daily lives. I was surprised that there is so much space for the kids to be entertained, more than any other school that we passed, but even then, there is still so much more that could be added to improve…
