KENT: There is a deep connection between Kent and Vietnam.
Kent State University was a center of student protests against the war. On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen killed four students during demonstrations on campus.
Maia O’Meara, 17, was born a quarter century after that event, but she is among a group of students and faculty at Kent Roosevelt High School working to raise enough money to build a library room that will be added onto a school in a tiny village in Vietnam.
“We still have a connection with that country,” said O’Meara, a senior.
So far, about $2,000 of the $5,000 cost of adding a library room to the Kim Dong School, located in Tam Thai commune, in the Phu Ninh district in Quang Nam province, has been raised.
The idea to raise money for the library — Project Vietnam — came from family and consumer sciences teacher Beth Schluep, who visited the Vietnamese school in the fall of 2010 with a group from Warriors’ Journey Home Ministry, made up of Vietnam veterans and others. Her husband, the Rev. John Schluep, founded the group, which works toward spiritual healing for veterans, their families and the community through education, support, forgiveness, reconciliation, reunification and initiation.
The Vietnamese interpreter who traveled with her group in Vietnam, Schluep said, has an affiliation with the school and took the group to the school.
“It is in a poor rural area,” Schluep said.
After the group got back to Ohio, Schluep said, it decided to raise money for the library.
“We have dreamed of such a library,” one of the students of the school, 9-year-old Tran Khanh Linh, wrote in a letter thanking the Kent group. “We thank you [for] trying to help our dream come true.”
Members of the Class of 2011 worked on the project last year, raising $2,000 through various fundraisers in concert with Amnesty International, including catalog sales, baking and selling holiday breads and handing out buttons at Art in the Park in Kent, said Tanya Titus, also a teacher at Roosevelt.
Maia called Project Vietnam “a chance for us to connect with them to learn about their culture and the kids to learn about our culture. It is an opportunity for both of us.”
The Project Vietnam group is holding a fundraising dinner — Vietnamese cuisine and a catered pasta buffet — at the Kent United Church of Christ, 1427 Horning Road, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Anyone who donates $250 or more will have their names engraved on plaques that will be placed at the library in Vietnam and at Roosevelt High School.
Maia said she will also speak at May 4 activities this year, and the group will have a table set up at which people can make donations.
To donate, make checks payable to “Project Vietnam, TRHS,” and mail to: Beth Schluep, Roosevelt High School, 1400 N. Mantua St., Kent, OH 44240. Or email Titus at ke_ttitus@kentschools.net or Schluep at ke_bschluep@kentschools.net.
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or at jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.
