8 of 8

At age 10, Nicole Cimino already is an experienced fundraiser and human-rights advocate. Between tennis matches, she is spending her summer selling lemonade and writing letters to political leaders, including President Clinton, about slavery in Sudan. Cimino, who will be a fifth grader in Vogel's class this fall, disdainfully recalls the reply her class received from the leader of the free world. "We asked for his help, but it wasn't the response we wanted," she says. "It was a picture with his dog and cat and a letter that didn't say anything."

Although Sudan is far away from Colorado, Cimino believes she has much in common with 10-year-olds there. "They want to go to school. They want to play with their friends. They want to be free," she says.

Cimino's classmate Charles Hayes likes to quote famous American blacks such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Thurgood Marshall. "God must have put us here on earth for a reason," he says. "That reason was not to put people in slavery or to separate races. He put us here to live free."

This summer, at a family reunion in North Carolina, Hayes is collecting do nations for slave redemptions. But he is realistic that raising enough cash to buy back every slave will not end slavery. "I don't think it's about money," Hayes says. "I think it's about awareness."

Hayes knows some people do not agree with his efforts to redeem slaves. He also knows that life may not be any better for freed slaves. But he senses that he and his classmates are providing the opportunity for a better future.

"At least if we get them out of slavery, they have more hope than they had in slavery," Hayes says. "If they die in slavery, they die with no hope."

Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

first page |  8 of 8

share this page

August 9 1999, Vol. 43, No. 9