Jasper students prepare for volunteer trip to Kenya

A slew of performers will play at the McCready Centre on Aug. 22 as part of a fundraising concert to send six Jasper youth to Kenya to build a schoolhouse.

The lineup for the concert includes Crowded City Skyline, Lyrical Attitude and Right Right Now, Joe Nolan, Jordan Strand, Jordan Norman, Jessica Heine, and Branded Oak for the show at the United Church on the weekend.

Two students going on the trip, Paula Ermet, 18, and Melanie Frigon, 18, will attend university in the fall. Eman Ismaeil, 16, Clara Waxer, 17, Carly Charlebois, 16, and Theresa Westhaver, 15, are all in high school in Jasper and form the rest of the group heading to Africa with Free the Children, a charitable organization that aims to stop child labour through education. 

In Kenya, they will build a schoolhouse “from the ground up,” Ismaeil said. “From what we’ve seen there are kids that go to school but they sit outside and have no school supplies.”

It costs each volunteer $7,000 to go, which must be paid at least 100 days before they depart on their trip. Jasper’s group will be going for 20 days next July, which means they will need to submit their fees in March.

So far they’ve raised $540 and $709 respectively at two barbecues they’ve held in the Super A parking lot this summer. Volunteers must contribute what they don’t raise, and the girls expect they’ll end up forking over $5,000 each.

The students jumped at the opportunity to go, especially Ismaeil who said she’s always wanted to volunteer in a foreign country. “I think it’s going to be a shock,” she said.

Ermet wanted to do it for the “experience and adventure of it,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to travel, and this trip gives us the experience to do it on our own.”

Concert tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door and can be purchased from the organizers or at Tekarra Colour Lodge.