I'm not sure how many of you know about the Pepsi Refresh Project, but basically Pepsi is offering money to people who have ideas/dreams they'd like to fulfill, and it's the public vote that chooses the winners. You get 10 votes a day (you can only vote for one idea once per email address) so even if you have your own favorite pepsi refresh program projext idea, if you could still spare one of your votes for this idea, to rebuild the elementary school in the little towns of Benld and Gillespie Illinois (where I grew up) the community would be very grateful!
Here is a copy and paste of what the community would like to do:
Overview
On March 28, 2009 our community suffered a horrible event. Our 700 elementary school students have permanently lost their school!
Benld Elementary located in a small rural community about an hour northeast of St. Louis, MO and about an hour south of Springfield, IL was built about seven years ago. The damage from mine subsidence happened throughout the school, forcing it to be condemned. This was not an ongoing issue, the damage happened in one weekend and it's expected to get worse. The walls are twisting and cracking, floors sinking and rising, in many different directions and basically, as the building is sinking, it is being torn apart. The rural communities in this area developed as mining became its key resource many years ago. The school, as well as a majority of the homes, businesses and other buildings, were built over the top of these mines that are hundreds of feet under the ground.
http://pep.si/asrKDz
There are pictures on the Pepsi website of the school. This grant money would only be a fraction of what it is going to cost to rebuild the school but every bit helps and this could be a huge help for them. I grew up here, my family is still there and my nieces and nephews have gone or will go to this school. The kids have been in modular buildings since the sinking of their school and they just deserve better for their education. They're making the best out of the situation but these kids need and deserve a proper school.
Please vote for them!
3 comments:
I voted & reposted on facebook, as you saw! I was at a training in Springfield recently & the superintendent from the school district down there was presenting about something & also talked about the school's situation. That's horrible and I hope that it can be rebuilt soon! Out of curiosity though, what will prevent this from happening again? Isn't the whole area over old mines, so will that risk always be there?
Thanks for voting Teale and that's a really good question and I don't have an answer. The entire community is at somewhat of a risk to sinking (many of the houses around the school also sunk at the same time).
Before the school was built, they had surveyors come out and all of the proper precedures in place before building to ensure that something like this couldn't or wouldn't happen. I'm not sure if they're suing for money for that or not to be honest. In fact, I went to junior high in the school they knocked down in order to build this new one (and so did my mom, actually).
Just voted good luck!
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