Partnership helps children sleep

Collaboration between Aktion Club and the Kiwanis International Foundation is helping more than 700 children from impoverished families sleep in comfort. Each child received a free bed kit provided by Sleeping Children Around the World (SCAW), a program that provides bed kits to children in need in underdeveloped and developing nations. Aktion Club adopted SCAW as its first International Service Initiative.  

Aktion Clubs were challenged to raise US$10,000 for SCAW, with the Kiwanis International Foundation promising to match this sum. Aktion Club members surpassed their goal within four months, and a total of US$20,438 was sent to SCAW. This contribution provided 729 bed kits to children in need. 

In May, volunteers delivered a majority of these kits to children in the Philippines. Each SCAW bed kit includes a mat or mattress, pillow, sheet, blanket, mosquito net, pajamas or other clothing items, towel, and school supplies.

“My favorite SCAW story,” notes Anthony Ng of the Toronto Aktion Club, who traveled to the Philippines to help distribute bed kits, “is seeing where the kids live and how they got to the distribution, and seeing their faces light up when they received the bed kits.”  

This first year’s project was a huge success, and Aktion Club plan to continue its Service Initiative for the 2007-08 year.