During the week of January 18, the Global Empowerment and Outreach Club, GEO, organized various fundraising activities to help promote universal primary education.

GEO is working with Room to Read, a non-profit organization that aims to help underprivileged children from around the world acquire an education. So far, they have raised $1500 of their $8,000 goal to fund the construction of two libraries in India and Vietnam.

Club president Saloni Gupta (12) chose to work with Room to Read because it facilitated education around the world through reading.

“That was really important to us because we saw the impact that our new library had on our school and our community, so we wanted to also share that with other people around the world who don’t have the same access to education as we do,” she said.

One fundraiser, named Dress for Success, involved teachers and began on Tuesday. Twenty-seven participating teachers each had a plastic jar with their photo pasted on the front. Students dropped spare change into the jar of the instructor they most wanted to see wearing a middle school uniform.

“I think that anything we can do for educating in the world is going to be a very positive thing for the world itself,” said John Hawley, Latin instructor.

Economics teachers Peter Itokazu and Samuel Lepler even promised to wear skirts if they raised the most money.

“I don’t have any shame, so I don’t have any problem wearing a skirt for a good cause,” said Lepler.

Both economics teachers ended up being two of the winning five, along with history teachers Julie Wheeler and Ramsay Westgate and mathematics instructor Victor Adler.

In addition to the fundraiser, the club sold pens and approximately 160 hand-decorated notebooks to students throughout the week.

“I think they’re pretty cool; they suit each individual based on their own tastes,” Saachi Jain (9) said.

GEO also offered students the option to buy a book from a catalog and donate it to Room to Read.

In addition, another GEO event, Aspire to Dewire, offered students the chance to isolate themselves from a chosen electronic device, or from electronics altogether, for any amount of time. Participants gathered money from sponsors who donated money to the student who abstained from using the electronic.