(Jersey City - February 12, 2008) African American History month started in December at County Prep, as French Club students receive letters of gratitude from students in the West African country of Cote d'Ivoire, for the generosity they showed them during the winter holidays.

Last December, over one hundred and fifty County Prep students and staff gathered gifts to send to students at the Bingerville Orphanage (and School) for Boys, for the holiday season. The school is located in French speaking Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), in West Africa. As part of their study of Francophone Africa, the French Club and classes coordinated the effort to find Secret Santa's for each of the school's 235 students, with the guidance of their instructor, Ms. Karen Rinaldi. Electronic Media Specialist, Ms. Kim Piot, who had recently visited the country and made the connection between the two schools, coordinated the effort to collect the gifts, package them, and send them to the school. On December 20, the Bingerville students received the gifts, just before the end of the school term - and just in time for the holidays.

On February 7, Ms. Piot came to school with a big package of letters. Each was addressed to a  County Prep Secret Santa student, teacher, or staff member - they were from the Bingerville students. Excitedly, Ms. Piot and Ms. Rinadli distributed the letters to the French class. Almost every student in the class recieved a  hand written note of thanks, as did the many friends and family whom they had enlisted to participate in the Secret Santa event. Many of the letters were covered in decorative drawings that the boys had made.

As part of the class assignment, each of the County Prep French class students were asked to translate the letters from French into English. As they translated the foreign words, they heard a common message -- "Je suis tres heureux" and "je t'ecris cette lettre pour te remercier de m'avoir offert ces cadeux" and "benisse beaucoup."  In short, the boys were very excited and very happy to have received the gifts, they were thankful to the students and teachers for their generosity, and they wished them many blessings and best wishes for the new year.

County Prep students said of the experience that it was fun to help other people, and it made them "feel smart" to see that they could actually do the translation. Ms. Piot and Ms. Rinaldi look forward to continuing the cross cultural exchange next year.

Ms. Mendolla commends the students for their generous holiday spirit and applauds them for their efforts to expand their cultural awareness!