Teacher, students give young boy new hope

By Kenny Keane, Globe staff writer
Posted Oct. 31, 2002

FORT DODGE - Imagine for a moment, that you are a 4-year-old boy living in the Jagadgiri Gutta slum on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India. You are malnourished and unable to walk because of problems with your legs, spending the early years of your life moving about by dragging yourself with your hands.

Sad but true, this is the story of Vijay Kumar Lingareddy. However, this tale has a brighter side, thanks to a teacher and students from St. Edmond Middle School in Fort Dodge, who began sponsoring this young boy in the spring of 1994 and will make their 10th contribution in the spring of 2003.

"We were doing it as a Lenten service project," said Paula Templemeyer, the St. Edmond's teacher who spearheaded this effort. "We were talking about sponsoring a little child in a Third World country. So I contacted this organization, and they gave us this little boy."

The organization is the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) through which Templemeyer and her students came in contact with Vijay when he was 4. That year, during the month of Lent, the seventh and eighth graders collected money as their sacrificial offering, and the money was sent to CFCA who in turn took care of meeting Vijay's needs.

"The little boy writes two or three letters a year, and we get a new picture every year," Templemeyer said. "I just continued it year after year, offering the opportunity to whichever students I happened to be teaching at that time."

Now at the age of 14, after being sponsored for nearly 10 years, this little boy has made a miraculous recovery.

"He was born with a type of polio," Templemeyer said. "His right foot was turned completely around. From the pictures we had of him as a little boy, it looked like the foot was missing.

"A couple of years ago, we got a picture, and each year you could see the foot a little more. He'd had several surgeries to correct it and to get the foot turned around so that he can now go play soccer with the kids instead of sitting and watching, which is what he wrote us in one of his letters."

Templemeyer showed last year's sixth-grade students, who sponsored Vijay, his most recent photo, and she said the first question was "Did our money pay for that surgery?"

"They could see where their money really truly did help somebody, and they were so excited to see that," she said. "They realized that they have so much by the time I explained to them that this little boy's dad make $10 a week or even a month, and some of these kids get $10 a week as an allowance."

The teacher said they have donated over $2,500 during the time they've sponsored the little boy, and she's been amazed at how well the kids contribute. As for continuing this effort in the future, Templemeyer said she needs to talk with someone at CFCA to find out if there is an age limit where they stop sponsoring. She would like to sponsor Vijay up until that age and then start sponsoring a new child if at all possible.

"That the kids are given the opportunity to help someone less fortunate, to me that's a blessing," she said. "It's great to see different students truly take an interest in someone else even though it's someone far away, and I hope that it will translate to where they would be kind, generous, caring and giving to people closer to home."