June XX, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: XXXXX


BENITO STUDENTS RAISE MONEY FOR AFGHAN CHILDREN

Benito Middle School in New Tampa presented a donation check for $700 to the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation last week. The student council at Benito is responsible for raising the funds through the schools annual multicultural fair.

Collaborating to aid a struggling school in Afghanistan, students raised community awareness about the country while honoring a victim of 9/11/2001. Through a presentation of the Middle East at Benito’s multicultural fair, students deepened their understanding of Afghan culture and history.

In February 2006 the Benito’s Student Council and their president, 8^th grader Jaca Stultz, began a partnership with Sally and Don Goodrich of the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation to help deepen student’s understanding of the Afghan people and their country’s needs for rebuilding. Their son, Peter Goodrich was a victim in one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. His family decided to memorialize Peter by aiding a struggling school in Afghanistan.

The multicultural fair is an annual event at Benito where students create displays representing the world’s regions including information about the area’s cultural background. Principal Bobby Smith, “The multicultural fair provides a unique way for children to embrace diversity and learn that we are all members of a single world community.”

The Goodrich family has seen their dream come to fruition. A new school in Afghanistan serving 500 girls was recently completed and classes convened on March 24, 2006. Sally Goodrich has traveled to Afghanistan several times in the last year and a half to observe the progress of the school while assessing other opportunities of offer humanitarian aid.

“Thanks to Benito for your efforts to educate children about Afghanistan.  It is at the heart of what we do.  Promoting a deeper understanding of the complexities of Afghanistan is vital for our children and the need to support the development of this fragile country is so important, especially in the face of increasing tension” Sally Goodrich, Director of the Foundation.

Benito’s donation will join others in aiding the Foundation’s current projects including; efforts to bring at least one Afghan child to the U.S. to attend school for more than a year, to maintain and provide educational resources for the Foundation’s school in Logar, to dig a well in Kunar, and to establish a community center in Wardak so the countries widows and orphans can become economically independent.  

For more information about the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation visit their website at www.goodrichfoundation.org