The Sault’s Cindy Zappacosta is the 2022-23 recipient of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario International Humanitarian Award.
Zappacosta, a Grade 7 and 8 teacher at Ben R. McMullin Public School, spearheaded a classroom mission during the past school year to provide desperately needed shoes for school children in Uganda in cooperation with U.S. charity Sole Hope.
Many children in Uganda do not have shoes and are afflicted by jiggers, which are tiny insects that burrow into the flesh on a person’s hands or feet. Infection is serious and painful and jiggers have to be removed with a knife, scalpel or pin.
“We did a school wide drive for months asking for donations of denim and once we had enough collected I received shoe patterns from Sole Hope. We traced and cut out shoe patterns to make denim uppers for shoes, so we spent days doing that. We packaged it all up and sent it all into Sole Hope to send to Uganda,” Zappacosta told SooToday.
Her students cut out enough denim patterns for 37 pairs of shoes.
Zappacosta and her class also raised $1,500 for the humanitarian project.
The money is needed to employ Ugandans in the making of new shoes with good soles and denim uppers for children who need them.
“It’s about more than just shoes. The funds are also needed for medical care. It’s about employing locals in Uganda to make the shoes. So we did school fundraisers and held a family dance to raise the money we needed to send in,” Zappacosta said.
The shoes arrived in Uganda earlier this year.
Zappacosta’s students also became pen pals with students at Mirembe Junior School in the Ugandan capital city of Kampala.
“We exchanged photos of our school, our playground and they sent us photos. We exchanged Canadian and Ugandan flags.”
Each of Ben R. McMullin Public School’s 200 students signed a Canadian flag to send to students in Uganda.
“It’s not about me,” Zappacosta said of the ETFO Humanitarian Award, praising the enthusiasm that her students showed during the project.
“They totally embraced it.”
She learned of the Ugandan children’s plight and Sole Hope while on a visit to Africa in 2022.
Since 2012, Zappacosta and her husband Anthony have made six trips to countries such as Uganda, Peru and Malawi to distribute Christian literature for Shareword Global in neighbourhoods, schools and prisons.
Here at home, Zappacosta said it’s important to her to instill a spirit of goodwill in her students.
“I think giving starts where we are.”
“We all can give to others so in our school building I’ve had my students be buddies to Kindergarten children, do Christmas Cheer food drives, write cards to those in seniors homes, we’ve written letters to the military. I just want to create in children, starting at a young age, a realization that life isn’t just about us. We need to consider those around us and that’s how you really become a global citizen.”
Zappacosta has developed a partnership with a Ugandan teacher and his school and wants her Ben R. McMullin students to keep up their Ugandan pen pal friendships.
“Kids actually do want to give back and contribute when they’re presented with the opportunity and that’s what I feel my role as an educator is, to provide those opportunities. It’s a really important component of being a teacher. It’s not just about teaching the subjects. It’s to fully develop a child as a citizen.”
In another honour involving a Sault educator, Emily Noble received an honorary lifetime membership award from the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.
Noble began her teaching career with the Sault Ste. Marie District School Board in the 1970s and served as ETFO vice-president – female, ETFO first vice-president and as ETFO president from 2002 to 2007. She retired in 2009.