Posted on Tue, Oct. 14, 2008
Every 30 seconds, malaria kills a child somewhere in the world.
When Lynda Commale of Downingtown told her daughter Katherine about that statistic two years ago, the 5-year-old decided to count to 30. Then she decided to do something.
Now age 7, Katherine has raised about $73,000 for a program that buys bed-nets to protect families from mosquitoes in tropical nations, mostly in sub-Sahara Africa. At $10 per net, that means one girl in Chester County has helped to save the lives of at least 7,300 people.
Katherine's pitch is as simple as her effort is inspirational. She and younger brother Joseph, 5, built a cardboard diorama of a family in its hut, with a bed, dolls, a net and a toy bug to represent the mosquitoes. In an instant, kids and adults alike grasp the concept of how netting hung over a bed protects children from the disease-carrying insects.
Katherine was raising money for the program before it had a name. The Commales presented the challenge at their church, Hopewell United Methodist, then expanded the campaign to local schools. Katherine even attended an event at the White House in 2007, and spoke to bishops at the annual conference of the United Methodist Church.
The donations go to the program Nothing But Nets (
www.nothingbutnets.net), a global grassroots campaign created by the United Nations Foundation in 2006. The United Nations already had a malaria prevention program, but agreed to start Nothing But Nets after ESPN columnist Rick Reilly suggested the idea.
Nothing But Nets purchases the insecticide-treated nets, transports them to Africa and distributes them to families. Bed nets stop mosquitoes from biting during the night, and also kill the insects.
The goal is to eradicate malaria worldwide by 2015. Malaria infects about 500 million people each year and kills about 1 million. Children and pregnant women are especially vulnerable; children under 5 who contract the illness die within 36 hours without treatment. Experts estimate that it will cost up to $3 billion per year to fully combat it.
The campaign has heavy hitters, including the National Basketball Association, the Methodist and Lutheran churches, Bill Gates, Exxon-Mobil and Orkin pest control. It also has 85,000 individuals such as Katherine Commale raising money, $10 at a time.
This elementary school student has been working tirelessly to help other children she's never met. That kind of effort deserves more than a pat on the head; it deserves a giving response from this community.
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