Girl Scout Gold Award Project Brings Gift of Reading to India

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Published December 17th, 2014

Girl Scout Gold Award Project Brings Gift of Reading to India

Submitted by Patty Gonser

Acalanes High School senior Jenny Gonser reads with one of the girls, Krupa, at an orphanage in India. Photo provided

This past August, Acalanes High School senior Jenny Gonser volunteered over 150 hours to create a library for an orphanage in India for her Girl Scout Gold Award. She collected over 1,000 donated books and with the help of family, friends and high school church group members from Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church, recorded 100 of the books to create a listening library for the 108 children currently living at the orphanage in Visakhapatnam, India.

The orphanage was started about nine years ago by Rosie and Anand Thandu, two software engineers who were born in India but were then living in Walnut Creek. "Rosie and Anand are amazing people who have dedicated their lives to helping to provide a loving home and food, clothing and education to the some of the very poor children in India," said Gonser's mother, Patty. "Prior to coming to the orphanage, many of the children had been abused, were malnourished and had never had a formal education."

Gonser used her babysitting money to buy 20 CD players and had batteries donated. With the LOPC high school youth group, Gonser brought all the books, CD players and batteries to India where she spent two weeks setting up the new library and training the teachers and students. The children and the teachers were thrilled and the listening library was a huge hit. The orphanage was recently damaged by the eye of Cyclone Hudhud. To learn more about the orphanage, and how to help, visit http://childrenoffaithmissions.org/.



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