The Book of Heartfelt Moments: Chapter 10

Children Helping Children

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” (Frank Herbert)

The mudslides were enormously devastating, leaving many young children orphans. The year was 1998, the location was the Costa Rican/ Nicaraguan border.

Two things happened the following year. An ex-pat from South Dakota, Irv Whilheit, offered the families who lived on his land and worked for him in Costa Rica, a rewarded opportunity to adopt some of these young children thus making them part of their families. Many did, dozens of children were adopted. Irv and the community embraced these new arrivals.

The young children made quite a trek to school each day, crossing the Inter-Americana Highway. One morning, several of the adopted children, all in ‘grade kin-der’ were hit by cars and killed.

During that same time, a woman who goes by Su, traveled to Costa Rica as many as six times a year from Alaska. She saw friends and worked cases that were not often talked about.

That same year, when Su returned to Alaska, she found herself in an atypical situation. Su had to really think outside the box in order to connect with students who had become hardened to the struggles in life. She was standing in front of this group and remembered the children in Costa Rica trying to readjust to their new lives and losses. She told her Alaska students about them. That seemed to move them in a way she had not predicted or seen before. Without giving this idea a lot of deep thought or planning, she blurted out, “Let’s build a school for these children.”

The next day, the students entered their classroom and told Su they couldn’t stop thinking about this story. They had told their parents, their families, friends and within one day, they devised a plan. They would tell the story of the orphan children throughout the USA and run a penny drive. This actually turned into a lot more than pennies!

Instantly, they became academically motivated in all their classes, to meet Su’s requirements of C’s or higher in all classes to participate. She had not planned all this out ahead of time, it seemed to have a life of its own! Many of the students went to second hand clothing stores to buy new clothes since they were now on television. Their project became newsworthy. The idea became a reality in full swing and lasted for about six weeks. Senators from Washington DC, grandmothers from Texas donated. Traffic was back up for miles every morning as lines of cars waited to drop their accumulation of coins to the students and teachers waiting out front with oversized watercooler jugs. The students, along with teachers, took shifts each morning. Over $75,000 was raised during those weeks.

Local news channels caught wind of this story, reporting the progress regularly. It became a popular story.

Each student in the class had a task and they had to figure out how to work together. They became friends; their idea and dreams became a savored reality. After the funds were raised, Su traveled down to see Irv again. He donated the land for the small school and Su’s students raised the money. Together Irv and Su oversaw the construction of this building. They were in absolute awe; children helping children across the Americas.

Both sides benefited from this project and for many, it changed the trajectory of their lives.

This merger went together much more smoothly than one might expect. The school was created with retractable walls between the classes looping the grades, 1 /2, 3/ 4, and 5/ 6. And of course there was a class for ‘kinder’. This way the building doubled as a community center in the evenings and weekends.

Before the digging began, the people in the town greeted Su, who was joined by her own young son. They were met with a celebration of fried fish, other delicacies and a bottle of Coca Cola. After a wonderful meal, all joined hands, forming a big circle around the area that was to be the new school; photos were taken. Irv had remembered a prior conversation Su had shared with him hoping to one day find a conch shell from the beach. Still in a circle, several of the children came to present her with a conch shell they had found at a nearby beach as a thank you gift.

Today, almost twenty-five years later, the Alaska students, now all grown up, tell Su about their own dream; to one day take their own sons and daughters to see the school they had a part in building.

Irv has recently passed away in Costa Rica at the age of 99 years old. His community near Playa del Sol lives on. And today, as 2024 comes to an end, Su has celebrated this incredible memory. She has passed the conch shell on to her youngest grandson, the son of the son who was with her that day. It fills her with joy to think one day, her grandson will one day visit the school, and pass down the meaningful story behind the conch shell as well.