Greg Overholt wants to prove that raising marks back home can lead to raising roofs in the third world.
Overholt is the executive director of Students Offering Support (SOS), a non-profit organization which offers study sessions to Canadian students for a $20 donation fee and then uses the money to send volunteers abroad to build schools and improve the lives of kids living in poverty.
Overholt, a 23-year-old business and computer science major at Wilfred Laurier University, launched SOS officially in 2006 and already in its first year the organization raised $65,000.
Most of the money was used to fly a team of 20 volunteers down to Belize last August to build a modern school facility complete with electricity, running water and a modern washroom for 100 boys and girls in the town of Calla Creek. The rest was put into helping build another school in Jamaica through a different charity organization there.
To date SOS has raised nearly $120,000 and Overholt hopes it will be able to raise half a million dollars by the end of 2010.
Overholt’s passion for helping to build schools for underprivileged kids comes from his own philosophy about the importance of education in stopping the cycle of poverty.
“Education, in my mind, is the number one way to break poverty. It is the most efficient way to provide children with choices they can make with their lives and not be slaves to poverty. I feel that it’s the best way we can help them to lift themselves up,” Overholt said.
SOS started at Laurier but has been growing by leaps and bounds since, with a second chapter in Trent University and nine new chapters expected by this coming September including ones at Queen’s University, the University of Regina and McGill University.
Laurier business student Katie Sin, 22, heard SOS was planning a trip to Belize last summer and decided she wanted to get involved. She flew down with 19 SOS volunteers to help build a school for underprivileged kids in the Calla Creek region.
For Sin, the best part was seeing the great response from the kids at seeing their new school go up, complete with electricity.
“Just seeing the difference that you make and seeing kids’ faces light up — it was great to see that. It shows what a difference 20 students from Canada can make,” Sin said.
For Overholt, the success of the program has been a life-changing experience.
“People ask me, ‘What are you doing after university?’ My job is to get more people aware of the problems of child poverty. My job is to help students," Overholt said.
