If doing for others defines the person, then Ascension Parish’s 10-year-old Katelyn Champagne is reaching out all the way to Africa.
While she is like most young girls having friends, and going to school and church, with her parents, Michael and Jenny.
Her grandfather, Joe Martin, who she calls papa and inspired her to help others, is an associate pastor at the Church in St. Amant, where they attend services.
“My papa showed me pictures of the kids he helped in Africa and I wanted to help too,” Champagne said.
Martin is also a board member with Children’s Cup, a Christian missionary program that works to ease the suffering of Africa’s orphaned children.
He has a ministry there and through the Church in St. Amant, Champagne came to be aware of the charity’s work and decided she wanted to help, too.
“You always wonder if your kids are watching, “Martin said. “And hoping they are picking up your values and your virtues.
Champagne was watching and then started thinking. She wanted to devise ways to make things easier for those who couldn’t do for themselves. She observed children who had to walk, sometimes as far as five miles, from home, in bare feet to go to school.
Two weeks before her birthday, she had an idea.Champagne invited people to a party, but instead of birthday presents for her, she asked her guests to give her shoes that could be donated to Children’s Cup.
Katelyn’s mother, Jenny, told her father what his granddaughter was doing and he made her an offer.
“I told her, if you really put this thing together,” Martin said.” I’ll take you to Africa so you can personally give the shoes to the children who’ll wear them.”She accepted his offer.
So far, she’s collected 50 pair of new shoes, put them in a suitcase and, with her grandfather’s help, sent the case to South Africa. Now, she is collecting more shoes and in June will a board a plane with her grandfather headed to Swaziland.
The state of Swaziland and countries of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa, where HIV and AIDS rates runs higher than anywhere else in the world, has been assisted by Children’s Cup since it was founded in 1992. At its Carepoint stations, children receive food, medicine and now … shoes.
Ben Rogers, executive director of Children’s Cup, whose father-in-law Dave Ohlerking, along with his wife, Jean, founded the charity, couldn’t be happier about Champagne’s effort to help her fellow human beings.
“We love it,” Rogers said. “We hope it spreads to other people to make this world a better place.
Rogers said it proves something he believes to be true: “You don’t have to be 30-years old to make a difference.” Martin said he is proud of Champagne.
“It touches me as a grandfather,” he said. “To see my granddaughter acting so selflessly, to go without, so others could have – especially in this day and age when you see so many younger people acting only in their own self-interests. It makes me proud to see her reaching out to help those who need it.”
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