[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 17361]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  RECOGNIZING THE METTAWEE COMMUNITY SCHOOL PENNIES FOR PEACE PROGRAM

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. PETER WELCH

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 28, 2010

  Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, l rise today to recognize an extraordinary 
group of students at the Mettawee Community School in West Pawlet, 
Vermont.
  I would like to commend the Mettawee Community School for its effort, 
inspired by Greg Mortensen's Three Cups of Tea, to collect pennies to 
help build schools for children halfway around the world. The pennies 
collected by students at Mettawee were donated to Mortensen's ``Pennies 
for Peace'' charity, which helps support education for children in 
rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. I am immensely proud of the students 
and teachers of Pawlet and Rupert for organizing this project.
  Through a selfless commitment to supporting opportunities for 
children whom they have never met, Mettawee's students learned about 
the importance of giving to others, the invaluable nature of education, 
and the consequences of conflict. They learned that not all the world's 
children have the chance to attend school, and of the need to fight 
extremism and intolerance with education and opportunity.
  The initiative was spearheaded by Mettawee Community School third 
graders Sydney Badger, Trinity Delano and Isabelle Desroches, with the 
help of teacher Nancy Bryant. Together they organized a collection of 
47,700 Pennies for Peace. The pennies will go to children in Pakistan 
and Afghanistan, and these funds have the potential to change lives by 
providing access to learning opportunities and by ending isolation and 
cycles of ignorance.
  I would like to thank the students of Mettawee Community School for 
their hard work and dedication to the cause of bringing education to 
boys and girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan through Pennies for Peace.

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