DAN & WHITS GENERAL STORE IN NORWICH VERMONT HELPS SCHOOL CHILDREN IN ARMENIA WITH PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER

I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Hrazdan Armenia. I teach English to school children in grades three through eight at one of the local public schools, School # 14.  My home town is Norwich Vermont, where I shopped at Dan & Whits almost every day for one thing or another :-)  When I came to Armenia last August I brought with me three or four Dan & Whits reusable shopping bags thinking they might be useful.  In fact, I used them to carry around from classroom to classroom the white boards I purchased for the children to write sentences and do other exercises relating to our English classes.

The Armenian schools are not well funded. We have no electric lights and very little heat in the winter, so the children wear there coats, hats and mittens in the classroom all winter as do I. The blackboards have holes in them as do many of the walls. The only classroom materials the children have are their textbooks and a copy book (notebook to write in). They have nothing else. So, I purchased 13 whiteboards so each pair/table of children would have a board to write on.

Eventually the Dan & Whits reusable shopping bags began to wear out. So, I emailed Dan Fraser and asked him if he would send me more bags for carrying the whiteboards around school. The children actually argue over who will get to carry the bags.  A few weeks later about 20 Dan & Whits bags arrived via the Hay Post :-) So, now I carry and keep all of my school supplies in the Dan & Whits bags.

So, just wanted to say here thank you to Dan Fraser and Dan & Whits for helping the children of Armenia. Your thoughfulness and generosity is so appreciated.

Here are some pictures of the inside and outside of School # 4 in Hrazdan Armenia.

The outside of School # 14 built by the Soviets in the 1980s.  Yes, just one old Russian

car parked there during the school day. The teachers do not 

have cars. 

Inside of a typical classroom . . .

Also thank you to Nancy Osgood and The Norwich Public Library via Nancy for sending me children's books and magazines :-)

I love my friends and neighbors and Dan & Whits General Store in my home town - Norwich Vermont....