FARMINGTON – The Interact Club at Mt. Blue High School, an extension of the Rotary Club, is looking for donations of toy cars, bouncy balls or any kind of small toy. The toys will be given to young children on the streets of Colombia, Interact member Brittany Williams said Wednesday, as part of the club’s international community service project.

One of the club’s advisers, Al Feather, journeyed to Colombia last year to help with the Rotary’s world service project. The project teaches young, widowed mothers the skill of sewing, he said. After losing their husbands, many women migrate to the edge of the city of Cucuta to look for help. With no government services, the Rotary and Catholic services there try to teach them to sew and provide sewing machines, he said. More than 150 women have gone through the program that enables them to work in local shops, he added.

Some had only leaves

While there last year, he saw “kids with two of the oldest matchbox cars you’ve ever seen,” he said. Some had only leaves to play with and he realized these kids have hopes like any other kids.

He came back and shared the story with the club at Mt. Blue which then collected more than 90 cars in a project that they call “Wheels of Hope,” Williams said. This year they are asking for all kinds of lightweight toys that will be mailed to a school in Colombia and then distributed to needy children in Cucuta, she added.

Donations will be accepted until Jan. 14 and may be left in the offices at Mt. Blue High School and Foster Technology Center.

The 25-student members of the Interact Club run several community service projects and international projects, she said.

Another project begins Jan. 14 and runs through Feb. 1, she said. A children’s book drive will send books to Guatemala with a group called Safe Passages, volunteers from the local Rotary clubs.

February delivery

Rotary District Gov. Doug Ibarquen and family members along with Feather and some Rotarians will fly down in February and plan to take the books with them. Other groups of Rotarians will go down in March and April to take part in the hands-on project, Feather said.

They will not only buy books and computers but work to teach children English so that they can “break the chain of poverty” by growing up to get jobs in the countries’ tourist industry.

All kinds of picture books and easy chapter books for kids to learn may also be left at the high school and Foster Technology Center offices, Williams said.

Feather and co-adviser Pauline Rodrigue work with the Interact Club to promote service at a younger level, he said.

The Rotary is also sponsoring an exchange student, Pia Laine from Finland at Mt. Blue, Feather said. Williams has been chosen to be an exchange student next year although the country has not been decided, he added.