South’s Giving, Helping And Nurturing Anloga  (GHANA) Club is planning a fund-raising campaign this spring for Anloga, a village in Ghana.

GHANA Club was founded by juniors Madison O’Brien and Jane Brennan to spread awareness and gather aid for the people in need in Ghana.

“We are raising money and collecting old school supplies and clothing for the children in Anloga, a village in Ghana which I worked with this past summer, [who are] in need of help,” O’Brien said.

Thus far, fund-raising has primarily consisted of bake sales; however, O’Brien and Brennan said they plan to expand their efforts in the coming months.

“[We’re going to] have a school supplies drive,” O’Brien said. “There will be boxes all around the school that you can put old school supplies in. We’ll be doing a clothing drive at the end of the year, and on top of that, we will be selling Livestrong bracelets [that] will say ‘Ghana’ on them.”

Club sponsor Kim Kiraly volunteered to have her Child Development classes help out.

“My Advanced Child Development class is working on an educational outreach project where the students are creating teaching and instructional resources for volunteers [teaching] in Ghana,” Kiraly said. “[My] students will then fill a suitcase full of these teaching materials along with school supplies [to send to] the children of Ghana.”

O’Brien first met the children of Ghana this past summer, when she spent three weeks in Anloga teaching and helping to build a kindergarten school as part of a service trip.

“The students there were incredible, always so excited to learn and so appreciative and so enthusiastic about it,” O’Brien said. “I’ve never met children with such a passion for education, [and] their attitude towards it […] led me to want to continue to work with them somehow.”

Ghana Club meets Mondays at 7:30 a.m. in the foods room.