Whenever they stop to think about it, I'm sure the students at Mountain View School realize just how lucky they are. They're surrounded by beautiful open fields, have a new $20,000 playground ... and they have a whole lot of wonderful desks, chairs, books, rulers, erasers, pencils, pens and paper.

Well perhaps they didn't truly appreciate those "little things" like the desks, pens, and paper until a couple of months ago. That's when John Mulrooney spoke to them about the students in six rural schools near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, students who have few of those "little things".

John, his wife Mary and three other Rotarians will be visiting those schools during the month of June and the Mountain View students decided they wanted to raise some money to help buy some of those "little things". In the end, they choose to organize a coin collection - not a penny collection - a coin collection.

"They did an amazing job," Mulrooney told me. "The final total was close to $1,200 and when I came to collect the coins, I couldn't carry them on my own. I had to get George Duffel (the school principal) to help me to the car."

All the students at the school participated but it was the two Grade 6 classes, Mrs Cronan's class and Mrs. Mjaaland's class that led the way. They challenged each other to see who could raise the most money. Mrs. Cronan's classes won the challenge by just two dollars but, obviously, the real winners were the students in Zimbabwe.

The most exciting thing about the project is that John, a recently retired school principal, is going to take the cash with him and find, first hand, where that money can be best spent.

He'll also take pictures of the children that were helped by this donation and, he hopes to build a relationship between the Zimbabwean and Mountain View students.

As regular readers of this column know, in July your humble scribe will be working at the same six schools we have "adopted" and, if you would like, I can arrange for you to be involved too.

I should note here that over the past three years, Rotary District 5020 (Vancouver Island and part of Washington State) has collected well over two million dollars worth of cash and school supplies to support this project. The supplies will be distributed to more than one hundred schools in Zimbabwe.

I am excited about the opportunity I will have to help out face to face, working on long overdue renovations to school buildings and distributing much needed school supplies.

I'm even more excited by the opportunity I'm being given by my Rotary Club and several of my friends. The Rotary Club of Nanaimo North has given me $1,000 and friends have donated another $400. They have asked me to seek out the best way possible to invest their money in this project.

As John is doing with the Mountain View students, I am going to take pictures so that those who have contributed will be able to see exactly what their donations have achieved.

Here are some of the estimated prices of things that will be on my shopping list: slates ($2 each), 8 seat table and benches for primary students ($350), soccer balls ($30 each), 30 meters of fencing to protect school gardens ($165), 5 liters of blackboard paint ($25).

Finally, I want to find, and support, at least two students whose families can't afford the three hundred-dollar tuition fee required for them to complete all four years of high school.

If you would like to help out you can send a cheque to the Rotary Club of North Nanaimo, Africa Fund at PO Box 223, Nanaimo, BC, V9R 5K9. We'll need to receive it before June 20.