Puzzle pieces fall into place

All the pieces were available, they just needed the Aktion Club of Eastern Carolina of Greenville, North Carolina, to put them together.

The puzzling pieces included:

• The children of Wahl-Coates Elementary School have so much to learn about nature, its fragility and diversity.
• Richard Mauger, a professor of geology at East Carolina University, had purchased more than 200 posters, collected from United States national parks, but they needed to be framed.
• The Eastern Carolina Vocational Center (ECVC), which provides job training and employment to persons who have disabilities, makes frames.
• Members of the Eastern Carolina Aktion Club have a strong desire to serve children and teach them about persons who have disabilities.

One by one, the puzzle pieces fell into place.

Mauger donated the posters, along with a US$1,000 contribution to cover costs, to the Aktion Club, which sent 15 posters to the vocational center for framing. The members’ plan was to find sponsors who would pay $500 for a poster to be presented to schools in the area. Half of the sponsorship fee would cover the cost of framing, and the other half would be deposited in the club’s service account. The first presentation, however, would be made on behalf of ECVC in recognition of its support of the Aktion Club.

The first selection was a Nature Conservancy print of endangered species, showing a West Indian manatee, Florida panther, bald eagle, grizzly bear (mother and cubs), gray wolf pup, purple hedgehog cactus, wood stork, Hawaiian monk seal, whooping crane, piping plover, small-whorled pagonia, and a leatherback sea turtle.

“The Aktion Club members selected this poster because the title is Diversity,” explains Greenville-University City Kiwanian and Aktion Club advisor Todd E. Siebels. “They wanted to illustrate to the children that regardless of our differences we all have something to contribute.”

Timing could not have been more perfect, because the school had scheduled an assembly of all students for a first-grade musical. And the performance’s theme? Diversity! School officials scheduled the poster presentation during the assembly.

“The club hopes the students will learn about endangered species and also recognize how precious life is,” Aktion Club President Kelley Kaplan told the audience.

The event accomplished much more than originally planned.

“This is a great way to get our members involved like regular Kiwanis clubs,” Todd says. “Aktion Club members gain confidence by improving their leadership, social, and communication skills, while educating the children we serve. On the receiving end, the children can see at an early age that citizens with developmental disabilities have something to give back.”