JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) — Maddox Hampton, a sixth-grader at Nettleton Middle School, got to send a solar oven he designed and built to a family in Uganda over Thanksgiving break.
Hampton and his fellow classmates in Kelli Cochran’s science class partnered with Greg Rainwater, the Nettleton athletic and transportation director, to send 30 ovens to five villages when Rainwater made his annual trip to Uganda.
Hampton’s team designed an open-faced oven small enough to fit with the other ovens in three suitcases.
“I saw a picture of a family standing with my oven,” Hampton said. “I hope they use it for good and maybe share it with other families who may not have an oven like that and make a ripple.”
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The students were originally making the ovens as a class project centered on how to use science to affect the world in a positive way, Cochran said, but she found a perfect application through Rainwater.
Cochran invited Rainwater to speak to her class about how important the solar ovens would be to a community whose only means of cooking was over a fire in a hut all day, which sixth-grader Zharia Scales said was horrible for the villagers’ health.
“Their lungs suffer and most mothers and children are in the smokehouses,” Zharia said. “Being there for a day is worse than smoking four packs of cigarettes, and that’s not good for babies, either, if the mothers are pregnant.”
After Rainwater’s presentation, Cochran said the students were given a three-week deadline with specifications as to how large the ovens could be to fit in a suitcase. She said the students would come to work on the ovens over the weekends after spending days on the projects in school.
“It gives me chills to think that these kids, who, as sixth-graders are relatively ego-centric, know that you can help people who are a world away,” Cochran said. “I want them to realize that they are well-off. They have a roof and food to eat and an education, whereas students in Uganda don’t have that.”
The students met their deadline and sent the 30 ovens, along with translated letters and instructions, photos and clothes with Rainwater as he left for Uganda a week before Thanksgiving.
Rainwater, who is also a pastor for Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Walcott, Arkansas, had previously lived in Uganda from 2010-12 and did ministry through food relief and producing wells. Rainwater returned to a job in education at Nettleton after his time in Uganda, but he returns to Uganda every year to continue his work.
When he arrived in the village of Kitgum, Rainwater said he and his team did their first test with the ovens for the villagers. The team took a bowl of water and let it heat up in the oven. Women came and tested the water with their own fingers, Rainwater said.
“They were blown away,” Rainwater said. “I think they thought I wasn’t telling the truth. The curiosity alone, to see this big silver thing, how it worked and that somebody in Arkansas might think to bring something like this to them to help their lives was incredible to them. I wish all 230 sixth-graders could have been there to see it.”
Rainwater delivered the ovens to four other villages throughout his week in Uganda, and he and Cochran are already planning for the next year, Cochran said.
“We are thinking about mass producing the ovens with a single formula to make them the most effective, and we have feedback to work with,” Cochran said. “Mr. Rainwater said the ones that were boxier had the greenhouse effect, but the ones that fanned out and were larger collected more sunlight, so maybe we should put the two designs together and make kits to send.”
The project was a culmination of the most important projects in Rainwater’s life, he said.
“I have been an educator for 26 years, and this was one of the biggest highlights in all those years, and I have a lot of highlights,” Rainwater said. “To be in my role as a pastor, as an administrator, as an educator with these sixth-graders and being able to connect them with people in Uganda, I would be hard-pressed to find anything more rewarding than handing an oven that students here made to a lady in Kitgum, Uganda.”
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Information from: The Jonesboro Sun, http://www.jonesborosun.com