And the Winners Are (and yes, a drum roll please)...

In the spirit of the award season, LLI is announcing our own winners! For the month of February, LLI held a contest to recognize the highest test score in each English and French class for ages 6-15.

The prize? A brand new backpack full of school supplies. Kids were excited about new folders, fresh markers, cool erasers and more. School starts this week, so our winners were ready with new gear. Backpacks were packed with pencils, notebooks, folders, markers/crayons, erasers, pens, scissors, glue, rulers, compasses, pencil sharpeners, ABC games (for little ones!), jump ropes and/or jacks.

Why a backpack and school supplies?

In one of our meetings with mothers of our students in Zone Z in February, it came up that several families struggle to afford the long list of school supplies (the average list costs about 500 soles/175 USD) for every child. Although LLI is unable to provide backpacks to all participants (over 140 this semester!), we decided to offer a contest in every class to help alleviate the burden of some families. Kids got very excited and eagerly awaited the results from their teachers (pictured above... French students gathering around to see the contents of the new backpack).

So onto the winners...!

Zone D:

Alessa (also perfect attendance for January/February)

Anel (also perfect attendance for January/February)

Erick (also perfect attendance for January/February)
Mao and Renzo (tie!)
Gabriela (French II)

Deysi (French I)

Zone Z:
Valery (Los Alamos; also perfect attendance for January/February)
Deysi (UCV 232)
Anabella (UCV 232)
Mery Jane (UCV 231)
Andrea (UCV 231)
Xiomara (UCV 231)

Zone S:

Natividad

Valery in Los Alamos (Zn Z) showing off her new backpack

Gabriela and French teacher Lorene Mermin

Natividad with her backpack in Zone S

Anel and English teacher Lauren Kenyon


Andrea with her new backpack.

Special thanks to all LLI's volunteers for teaching this summer and to our supporters for giving us the opportunity to do such contests! In total, 13 backpacks were given out. THANK YOU!

Published by Lara DeVries on behalf of Light and Leadership. For more information, visit www.lightandleadership.org. Special thanks to Connie Wood, Elizabeth Jongetjes for the photos... and for being great volunteers, too.