'Unwanted' desks headed
for Costa Rica
By Jesse Duarte, St
Elena Star
About 100 desks that
just weeks ago appeared
destined for a landfill
are now being shipped to
an impoverished Costa
Rican school, thanks to
the intervention of St.
Helena’s John Heflebower
and the St. Helena
Kiwanis Club.
When news got out in
March that the Napa
Valley Unified School
District was disposing
of hundreds of old, but
usable desks and chairs
because state money was
available to buy new
ones, Heflebower was
shocked; a school he
sponsors in San Geronimo
de Naranjo, Costa Rica,
is in desperate need of
desks and chairs.
Heflebower said he
“adopted” the K-6
school, which serves
about 450 students in
two sessions per day, a
few years ago. During
frequent visits he’s
brought supplies and
helped remodel the
school’s bathrooms.
One of the school’s
primary needs has been
chairs and desks. In
Costa Rica a desk and
chair set sells for
about us$120 — an
astronomical sum given
the Costa Rican
government’s educational
subsidy of just 11 cents
per student per day.
After news broke that
Napa schools were
disposing of hundreds of
desks and other
furniture, a public
outcry led the school
district to pull about
3,000 pieces of
furniture from the
Dumpsters and look for a
better way to liquidate
them.
Heflebower got in touch
with eco-Organize, the
local salvage firm
that’s helping recycle
the desks, and was told
he was welcome to take
some.
On May 2, Heflebower,
with the help of five
pickups and a team of
about 10 fellow members
of the St. Helena
Kiwanis Club, picked up
about 100 desks from
McPherson Elementary
School in Napa and
stored them at private
homes in Napa and St.
Helena, where they await
transport to Costa Rica.
In the meantime,
Heflebower is working on
a plan to have Del Monte
ship the desks from Port
Hueneme in Southern
California to Costa Rica
for free. The produce
giant routinely ships
empty containers back to
Costa Rica after it
unloads fruit in
California.
However, getting the
desks into the country
duty-free might not be
easy, Heflebower said.
The St. Helena Kiwanis
Foundation donated $500
to help defray the cost
of shipping the desks
from St. Helena to Port
Hueneme. |
