Students Helping Honduras Fundraiser at Western Illinois University

MACOMB, IL -- Western Illinois University students create change by helping others, whether it's in Macomb or their hometown or across the ocean.

Western's Student Helping Honduras (SHH) chapter is holding a fundraising event tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 20) to raise funds for the volunteer organization. In Spring 2009, a group of four WIU students traveled to Honduras where they spent more than one week volunteering at an orphanage, the Las Mercedes Nutrition Center and Villa Soleada, a construction site where 70 new homes were built for impoverished families. The students will once again travel to Honduras for a similar mission Jan. 2-9, 2010.

The Students Helping Honduras group will bag groceries for donations from 4:30-7:30 p.m. Nov. 20 at County Market in Macomb.

In the past three years, the national Students Helping Honduras group has taken more than 500 students to work at its various project sites in the city of El Progreso. Volunteers have built 44 homes, an education center for orphans and two schools while growing a host of skill-building empowerment programs. The group's latest goals are to complete an eco-friendly water and waste management system and to construct a learning center for the local youth, complete with a library, technology lab and classrooms.

More information about SHH, which was founded by two college students, brother and sister, Shin and Cosmo Fujiyama, in May 2007, can be found at studentshelpinghonduras.org. The Fujiyamas founded SHH after visiting El Progreso where they witnessed hundreds of children without adequate housing, health care or access to education.

For more information about WIU's SHH chapter, contact Detrick at hope.shh@gmail.com, MJ-Detrick@wiu.edu or (309) 333-6593.

Copy By: Darcie Shinberger, University Relations
Phone: (309) 298-1993 * Fax: (309) 298-1606