A meeting with a little girl and her father in Nicaragua, and a 50 cent notebook and pencil changed Tom Affleck's life forever.
The Almonte native was working in the Central American country in 2006 when he decided to visit a local village, and on a whim, brought along a few pencils and notebooks. Affleck handed one of each to a little girl, who was overjoyed to receive the gift.
"It was her father's reaction that changed my life," Affleck tells 1310News from Nicaragua, where he is helping to build a school. "His face just lit up. He looked at her and he said 'Now you have this notebook and a pencil. You can go to school this year.'"
Affleck couldn't believe that less than a dollars worth of office material was all that stood between a child getting a education. Inspired by the experience, Affleck started SchoolBOX, a charity that builds schools and supplies school supplies throughout the country. Since it's launch, the organization has built 25 classrooms and provided school supplies for more than 10 thousand children in Central America.
Now the charity is hoping to raise $100,000 in order to build eight classrooms and provide school supplies to eight thousand more children in Central America, through their Cycle 4 SchoolBOX campaign.
The fundraiser is a cross-country bike ride, taken on by supporter Ilan Levy, who will cycle more than 8 thousand miles from Vancouver Island, where he dipped his rear tire in the Pacific Ocean, to St. John's, where he'll dip his front tire into the Atlantic. Levy is expected to arrive in the Ottawa area on August 5th. Details on how to donate to the campaign can be found on the
SchoolBOX website.