Warren girl raises $2,500, organizes charity drive

Care kits bound for Africa assembled Sunday at Market Street Pub

By Ted Hayes
Posted 9/14/17

About 40 friends came together in Warren Sunday to help out friends as yet unmet, half a world away.

At the center of it all was Hugh Cole School student Millie Piper, 10, who spent her summer …

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Warren girl raises $2,500, organizes charity drive

Care kits bound for Africa assembled Sunday at Market Street Pub

Posted

About 40 friends came together in Warren Sunday to help out friends as yet unmet, half a world away.

At the center of it all was Hugh Cole School student Millie Piper, 10, who spent her summer raising funds for a mission of mercy. The “kit packing” get-together at the Market Street Pub Sunday was the culmination of months of work by Millie, who raised nearly $2,500 in donations to provide care packages to the needy.

“I couldn’t believe how much came in,” said Millie. “It was amazing.”

Three months ago, Millie was watching TV with her mom Nicky and father Stephen when a commercial for “World Vision” came on.

“She saw a film of a girl in Africa walking, and it said she would walk for hours every morning to get dirty, bacteria-filled water,” her mom said.

“She went on the website, started looking into it and decided to get involved.”

World Vision helps by asking donors to raise funds which go to purchase the supplies needed for basic kits — shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrushes, and other essentials. The kits are $16 each, the donations go to the charity, and in turn the donors receive the kits’ constituent parts, which they then assemble and turn back to World Vision.

Millie hoped to raise enough funds to purchase 50 kits, but it took only a day or so of e-mail and local fund-raising to double that. She decided to shoot for 100 kits, and in the end of her three-month effort had raised enough to purchase 150 kits. Donations came from friends and family near and far, classmates and Bristol Warren teachers.
When Hurricane Harvey hit, her parents asked Millie if she might want to consider where the packages were bound. But she said no.

“She said, ‘I feel like the hurricanes are a one-off whereas the people in Africa are in need all the time.’”

Boxes and boxes of supplies arrived last week and the Pipers got in touch with Market Street Pub’s Amy Davock, who agreed to let them use their facility for the boxing get-together.

The Pipers had no idea what to expect, but by the time the event started at 4 p.m. there were at least 40 people helping with the assembly line. Others helped in unexpected ways — due to a mixup Millie was short about 110 bars of soap. But when a woman at the bar heard, she pledged to run out and get the needed number.

“It was amazing how people came together and just helped,” Mrs. Piper said.

“I was so happy that it was as successful as it was,” said Millie, who just entered the fifth grade.

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.