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CSN Student Starts Charitable Foundation (Naples, FL) (August 31, 2022) This past year, three CSN students created an international foundation to donate clothing and school supplies to a poor community in Medellín, Colombia. The organization, called Smiles for Medellín, was founded after CSN junior Zach Smitley traveled to the city where his family hails from and realized how much poverty there was in Medellín. When he started the organization, it was slow going. First, he began working with a Colombian lawyer to understand the laws on importing international donations, which took months, and COVID only made everything take longer. Next, he recruited fellow CSN junior Ronan Kennedy and 7th grade brother Noah Smitley to work with him on this huge project. They planned a launch party in January, registered the charity, and opened a bank account. The remainder of the spring was busy with gathering clothing donations, buying necessary school supplies for 469 students, and a trip to Medellín to finalize details with the school they decided to partner with. After a full school year of planning a launch party, buying supplies, receiving donated clothes, and packing 18 duffle bags, they finally landed in Medellín, Colombia on June 1, 2022. Upon their arrival, customs agents tried to seize all of the donations. The Americans made numerous phone calls and presented letters from their Colombian lawyer as well as a customs chief officer. After a heated 90-minute discussion, they were finally told they could keep all the donations. They then spent the next four days building the packages for each student: 10 pencils, five pens, an eraser, a notebook, and colored pencils or crayons. On June 9 they loaded up four cars with all the donations and arrived at the school. In total, they brought the children of the community clothing, 6,000 pencils, 2,500 pens, 500 erasers, 500 notebooks, 24 packs of colored pencils, two huge boxes of crayons, and a microscope for the school’s science lab. Next year, the group plans on bringing the school a TV and a 3D printer in addition to the school supplies and clothing. View a video of Donation Day at the school here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so2rSOOxhVg The students have learned quite a bit throughout this process. Starting a charity is much more difficult than they thought. Going from an idea to creating an organization was also a challenge since everything has to be developed from scratch. Additionally, the language barrier proved to be very complicated. The colloquial language was a challenge to understand, even though Zach is fluent in Spanish. At times, it was hard to express their ideas because things would get lost in translation. Their first year of the project is now complete, and the Naples students are now busy planning for next year. Their goal is to be able to scale up the charity and increase the donations each year by transporting even more items and helping more communities. If you would like to help this noble cause, please contact Smiles for Medellín at [email protected], or reach out to Michael Carpentier, the CSN Director of the Juliet Collier Sproul Center for Community and Global Impact, at [email protected] Community School of Naples, the largest PreK-12 independent school in Collier County, was established in 1982. CSN offers a rigorous college preparatory program, and 100 percent of its seniors attend select four-year colleges and universities. The school is located on a 77-acre campus in North Naples.
CSN Student Starts Charitable Foundation
(Naples, FL) (August 31, 2022) This past year, three CSN students created an international foundation to donate clothing and school supplies to a poor community in Medellín, Colombia. The organization, called Smiles for Medellín, was founded after CSN junior Zach Smitley traveled to the city where his family hails from and realized how much poverty there was in Medellín. When he started the organization, it was slow going. First, he began working with a Colombian lawyer to understand the laws on importing international donations, which took months, and COVID only made everything take longer. Next, he recruited fellow CSN junior Ronan Kennedy and 7th grade brother Noah Smitley to work with him on this huge project. They planned a launch party in January, registered the charity, and opened a bank account. The remainder of the spring was busy with gathering clothing donations, buying necessary school supplies for 469 students, and a trip to Medellín to finalize details with the school they decided to partner with.
After a full school year of planning a launch party, buying supplies, receiving donated clothes, and packing 18 duffle bags, they finally landed in Medellín, Colombia on June 1, 2022. Upon their arrival, customs agents tried to seize all of the donations. The Americans made numerous phone calls and presented letters from their Colombian lawyer as well as a customs chief officer. After a heated 90-minute discussion, they were finally told they could keep all the donations. They then spent the next four days building the packages for each student: 10 pencils, five pens, an eraser, a notebook, and colored pencils or crayons. On June 9 they loaded up four cars with all the donations and arrived at the school. In total, they brought the children of the community clothing, 6,000 pencils, 2,500 pens, 500 erasers, 500 notebooks, 24 packs of colored pencils, two huge boxes of crayons, and a microscope for the school’s science lab. Next year, the group plans on bringing the school a TV and a 3D printer in addition to the school supplies and clothing. View a video of Donation Day at the school here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so2rSOOxhVg
The students have learned quite a bit throughout this process. Starting a charity is much more difficult than they thought. Going from an idea to creating an organization was also a challenge since everything has to be developed from scratch. Additionally, the language barrier proved to be very complicated. The colloquial language was a challenge to understand, even though Zach is fluent in Spanish. At times, it was hard to express their ideas because things would get lost in translation.
Their first year of the project is now complete, and the Naples students are now busy planning for next year. Their goal is to be able to scale up the charity and increase the donations each year by transporting even more items and helping more communities. If you would like to help this noble cause, please contact Smiles for Medellín at [email protected], or reach out to Michael Carpentier, the CSN Director of the Juliet Collier Sproul Center for Community and Global Impact, at [email protected]
Community School of Naples, the largest PreK-12 independent school in Collier County, was established in 1982. CSN offers a rigorous college preparatory program, and 100 percent of its seniors attend select four-year colleges and universities. The school is located on a 77-acre campus in North Naples.