While visiting Cuba last December, Micah Worner, a seventh grader at American Martyrs, was concerned to learn that the government severely rations provisions like school supplies.
“When I found out that kids only got two pencils, I just started asking questions,” Worner, 12, said recently. “What would happen if the kids didn’t have any more erasers?  I was worried, so it came to me that I should make a service project.”
Worner was in Havana with her mother, Elka, who was producing a documentary on Fidel Casto, The Fidel Castro Tapes.
During their stay, Elka introduced Micah to the Torres family, whom Elka met twenty years earlier while working for Fox News Channel in Cuba. One of the kids, Yancarlo Gonzales Torres, is Micah’s age.
“He and Micah had a bit of a language barrier, but they got along,” said Elka.  “Also, she didn’t want to be in a newsroom with me all day, so instead, she spent time with Yancarlo and found out a little bit of what Cuban life is like.”
According to Micah, the central discovery that sparked her interest for her service project was that Cuba uses ration cards to distribute various provisions.  As a result, many schools, such as Torres’s, only ration two pencils to each student at the start of each school year.
American Martyrs requires students to participate in service projects, so upon Micah’s return, she began creating her service project in preparation for another trip back to Cuba in June.  For example, when Elka’s documentary had a screening, Micah set up a poster with pictures of Cuban school children and asked for donations to buy school supplies.  Micah also asked her friends to donate funds and school supplies. Ultimately, Micah raised enough money to bring 150 pencils to East Havana.
“One of the barriers that I faced was that I didn’t have a lot of money to buy all of the pencils or erasers that I wanted the students to have,” Micah said.  “But, when I could get all of the supplies, I felt like I was powerful and I can make a difference.”
Originally, Micah was going to give the supplies to one of Elka’s friends to deliver in Cuba.  However, Elka and Micah decided to take part in a people-to-people exchange in order to get into Cuba.  According to Elka, this is the more humanitarian method of getting permission to enter Cuba.  Once in East Havana, Elka delivered the supplies to a Catholic daycare center, a kindergarten school, an elementary school and Yancarlo’s secondary school.
“When I was giving the pencils to each school, I felt a little bit nervous because I was standing in front of a whole classroom of kids,” Micah said.  “But, the kids were really nice and I enjoyed it a lot.”
Back in Manhattan Beach, Elka and Micah currently have a box in their garage where they are collecting many provisions, such as toilet paper, paper, and school supplies, to possibly deliver to Cuba someday. Â However, Micah wants to expand her service project to donate more school supplies on an international scale. Â She especially hopes to expand to areas that really need school-related materials and cannot access them easily.
“I want to help kids in Africa by donating more pencils and paper to them,” Micah said.  “I may also try to get some books because I want to expand my service projects to get all of the school supplies that people need.  In America, you can just go to a store and buy school supplies, but in other places, they have to work very hard to get them.  I want to help them.” ER
