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Four Winona Senior High School students — seniors Jillian Blank, Brennan Meier, Steven Giebel and Kim Hawthorne — had done the work and raised the money, but until they saw firsthand the fruits of their labor, it didn’t feel real, they said.
Now, the school they helped build in Vietnam and the people using it are no longer just stories and ideas but personal memories they’ll carry forever.
The students spent a little less than two weeks in Vietnam this month as part of a tour organized by the Development of Vietnam Endeavors Fund, an Ohio-based organization founded by veterans, Vietnamese-Americans and others to help reconcile relations between the two countries.
“It was absolutely the most amazing experience of my life,” Blank said.
The students participated in a dedication ceremony for a school they helped fund.
“It felt like a completion for us,” Meier said. “This is a goal for something we’ve been working toward for a year.”
Last year, students in a WSHS global studies class taught by Dwayne Voegeli raised money for a nursery school-day care center in Vietnam. They were inspired by a speech by John Borman, a local Vietnam veteran and member of the DOVE fund. Voegeli, Borman and other local vets supervised a student effort to raise $10,000. The DOVE fund added an additional $14,000, enough to build a larger school than first planned.
The school in the Quan Tri province was eventually built, but the student’s work wasn’t done. They had heard from vets how important it was to see the areas for themselves. So they raised money from donations and their own pockets to spend Aug. 1-13 in the country and join in the celebration of the new school.
There, they were honored by villagers of the small, rural community where the school was built. Hundreds came to the dedication.
“They are the nicest people you’ll ever meet,” Blank said. “They were just so grateful that we helped them.”
The students visited other schools funded by the DOVE fund. They traveled the countryside with vets and interpreters, seeing a place most their age have only read about in history books on the Vietnam War. They visited Ho Chi Minh City, spoke to farmers and leapt into the Ha Long Bay.
Richard Wolfgramm, a former Green Beret who served in Vietnam, went on the trip to see the places he fought in and to try to heal wounds: both his and others’. For the past four years he’s gone to visit schools that were built and to scout new places that need help. This is the first time high school students have come along for the tour.
“They got a full immersion in Vietnamese culture, history and the history of the American war there,” he said. “This was not a classroom situation. They were active participants.”
Meier and Blank had never been in a plane before, let alone another county. To see the people who they had helped up close, shake their hands and speak to them, could only be described in one word by Blank. “Amazing,” she said, again and again.
Nolan Rosenkrans may be reached at (507) 453-3519 or at nolan.rosenkrans@lee.net.
