CeOSA Reunion

This past weekend, several members of our chapter went to the CeOSA Reunion held in College Park, Maryland. We had a wonderful time! Our goal was to update CeOSA on our progress and also on their potential responsibilities as our partner in the Centennial Secondary School Project. We also officially kicked off our campaign. We asked that if each member (and we think that CeOSA in the United States, as well as the London branch may number around 300) contribute $100 to our CSS Project, we will have the necessary funds for the first year to do what we need to do in terms of water, electricity and sanitation. We handed out fundraising kits to everyone. These fundraising kits consisted of our brochure, our campaign poster, a one-page summary of our project, and additional letters by Joe and Maria explaining the campaign. Please contact Maria at maria@1lovefoundation.org if you would like one of these kits. (for the electronic version- contact Lori at bacteria61@yahoo.com)

Our group was given 1 hour to present to about 20 representatives of CeOSA on Saturday. We ended up taking about 4 hours with discussions! We were very pleased with the outcome. Everyone listened carefully to our presentation. We ended our presentation with talks of an "advisory board". This was taken very seriously by CeOSA. They will be consulting with their other counterparts in London and Sierra Leone and get back to us on potential candidates for the board.

For lunch, Doris and Phillip Bundu, and their daughter, were in charge of preparing traditional Sierra Leonean food. What a treat! The cassava leaves were a bit spicy but everything was excellent!! We also found out that they cut their meat leaving in the bones which they add to their dish. This allows the marrow in the bones to add additional flavor to the dish.


Saturday night we attended a banquet that started at 9:00 (when we had dinner) and ended at 1:00 a.m. It was quite a night!

Sunday morning, Joe held his service in our meeting room. We were fortunate to meet two elderly ladies that were missionaries in Sierra Leone. One of the ladies taught at Centennial, then went to Bumpe High School. Her total time teaching was 35 years!! The other lady taught at the primary school in Mattru.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. We met many warm, compassionate Sierra Leoneans who really care about Centennial Secondary School. Again, we thank Joe Abu for coordinating and bringing us all together for this wonderful meeting.

On a side note, if any of our STRIVE students are reading this post, I will be collecting letters to take to Sierra Leone on our next trip to pass out to students. If you are interested in this potential pen pal relationship, get in touch. (Lori at bacteria61@yahoo.com).