'Backpacks to Mexico' are grassroots gifts from Wheaton

On Wednesday, March 27, Wheaton students will be busy packing more than 800 collected backpacks and school supplies to send to the northern Mexico town of Acu[breve]a.

Why backpacks? Adar Cohen, Wheaton sophomore and founder of the grassroots initiative ''Backpacks to Mexico,'' has heard this question hundreds of times. His answer is simple: Because they change lives.

A few years ago, Cohen heard Jan Paschal, then a representative for the U.S. Secretary of Education, speak about the school conditions in Acu[breve]a, Mexico. School supplies for students were hard to come by, and backpacks were a luxury. ''I began my initiative that day,'' Cohen recalled. He worked with fellow students and the local community to raise awareness and donations for the project, called ''Backpacks to Mexico.'' Near the end of his senior year, he called Paschal. ''She was surprised to find I had over 200 completely furnished backpacks ready to send - so surprised that she invited me to go to Mexico with her to speak at the Children Without Borders conference and to personally distribute the backpacks. The trip changed my life. We traveled through a vast ocean of cardboard houses separated by chain-link fences, and handed out the backpacks filled with treasures to awestruck children,'' Cohen said.

At Wheaton, the project has gained status as an official club, of which Cohen is the president. Sophomore Jon Burkle and nearly 30 other students have joined Cohen to help raised awareness for the project on campus and among local schools and in the process have collected more than 800 backpacks. Burkle and Cohen and their colleagues would like to see neighboring schools get involved with this project, from elementary schools on up. They encourage local teachers to get in touch with them, as well as any others interested in donating backpacks, school supplies or funds to help with shipping costs.

If Cohen's vision continues to flourish, ''Backpacks to Mexico'' will progress beyond a model of grass roots, global service to the policy sphere of social-justice work. Cohen is applying to grant funding to organize and conduct an intensive, one-day ''Backpacks to Mexico'' colloquium at Wheaton College to disseminate the philosophical and practical elements of this approach to globalized community service.
''I have never been the same since I handed out those backpacks in Acu[breve]a,'' Cohen said. ''The tendency to consider 200 backpacks as trivial is overwhelming, but the excitement and appreciation in the students' eyes is intoxicating.''

''Backpacks to Mexico'' invites all interested members of the local community to stop by on Wednesday, March 27 from 11- 2 p.m. in the Wheaton Dimple (rain location, Balfour-Hood Center) and learn more about the initiative and see what 800 backpacks looks like. All visitors are, of course, welcome to bring a backpack, or school supplies or both. For more information about the event or about ''Backpacks to Mexico,'' e-mail Jon Burkle at jburkle@wheatoncollege.edu, or Adar Cohen at acohen@wheatoncollege.edu. Members of the media, please contact Anna Fitzgerald.

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