Cleveland, Ohio

Brick by Brick

By Carol Hoffman, Plain Dealer
21 December  2003

Students attending a new elementary school in the village of Dissan in Mail, West Africa , are using supplies 

provided by Wiley Middle School in University Heights. “While in Mali last year, I kept in touch with teacher Bob 

Gambatese,” explains Scott Lacy, the Munroe Falls native who spearheaded a “Browns Backers’ T-shirt fund-

raiser in 2002 that netted $10,102 for the school, a water pump and a solar panel to power the pump (updates,  

January 5, 2003 )

Gambatese, a sixth grade science and language arts teacher, sold 24 of the $15 t-shirts to Wiley staff members. 

Student raised $400 through a dance, basketball tournament and a lunchroom change barrel called “Dollars for 

Dissan” The money went toward school supplies and sports equipment such as footballs and soccer balls, as 

well as Dissan students’ fees for next year’s sixth grade exam.

In February and March, Lacy visited several Northeast Ohio school, including St. Raphael Elementary School

in Bay Village , where students collected, $1,000 in pennies in plastic milk jugs to help build the school, which 

was completed before the rainy season in May and opened in October.

“I showed them videos and pictures of what they helped to accomplish” says Lacy who was in Mali studying the 

growing and breeding of sorghum for his doctorate in anthropology from the University of California-Santa Barbara .  

Lacy and his family have begun African Sky, a nonprofit group that will assist family farmers in Mail through 

friendships between the people of Mali and the United States . Its Web site, www.africansky.org was launched this 

month. 

-C.H.

Spirit: Buy a Shirt, Build a School
By Carol Hoffman, Plain Dealer
September 22, 2002

ARTICLE TEXT TO BE POSTED

NEXT                 BACK                HOME