GRAVETTE -- A benefit yard sale will be held this week to raise funds for 11-year-old Cassie Estep of Gravette.
Cassie, a sixth-grader at Gravette Middle School, was selected for the People to People Student Ambassador Travel Program. She will join a delegation of students on a 12-day educational journey that will take her through the Canadian West, representing her community and her country.
The People to People program was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958. He founded the People to People movement because he thought that ordinary citizens of different nations could solve their problems and live harmoniously with one another. He believed the path to peace was paved by shared experiences and understanding.
Student Ambassadors get to see the world, learn new cultures and make new friendships along the way. They get the opportunity to meet political leaders and see how their governments work differently from ours. They travel to places they have only read about and seen in books and online.
Cassie, daughter of Mike and Brandy Estep of Gravette, is very excited about the opportunity to make the People to People trip but she is required to raise all the funds to finance the trip herself. The yard sale is only one of several fund-raisers she has planned and she will be asking for donations and looking for sponsors to help her raise the travel expenses. She will have a concession booth at the Gravette soccer fields when soccer games are being played Tuesday evenings and Saturdays.
The trip to Western Canada will be made in June 2015. Cassie and her fellow ambassadors will get to track killer whales with naturalists in the Straits of Georgia, sleep in a tipi after hearing stories from an elder of the Blackfoot people and make their own obsidian arrowhead with the guidance of a renowned archaeologist. In the meantime she will spend the year learning about the many places to which she will be traveling and the sights she will be seeing. She has homework and projects to complete to qualify to make the trip.
The benefit yard sale will be held Thursday through Saturday on the Harvest Baptist Church property at 11036 N. Highway 59, south of Gravette. Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Anyone wanting to help Cassie raise the funds to make her trip to Canada is invited to clean out their closets and garage and donate items for her to sell. Contact Brandy Estep at 479-372-0836 to arrange drop-offs or pickups of merchandise.
Anyone who doesn't have yard sale items to donate is invited to come and shop. All proceeds from the sale will go directly to Cassie's tuition for the People to People Student Ambassador Program trip.
Community on 10/08/2014