By the numbers
$6,000
cost for building a classroom in Uganda
$2,583
amount Ball State’s chapter has raised so far this year
50 percent
of all out-of-school children worldwide are in sub-Saharan Africa
$1
is the cost of 10 bricks
$10
is the cost of a Bike to Uganda half-hour slot
The goal was to build a school for the children in Uganda. And when Ball State’s chapter of Building Tomorrow hosted its first Bike to Uganda event in October 2012, it raised $300.
The group needed $60,000.
After a fresh start two years later, the group has shifted gears and is focusing its attention on building a classroom.
“Right now, we are raising money for a room,” said Bailey Stultz, a co-president of the group.
The group has raised $2,583 during the last few months and has until the end of the year to reach its $6,000 goal.
Building Tomorrow is an organization with roots across the nation that raises money to help build schools in Uganda.
Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes Uganda, accounts for 50 percent of all out-of-school children worldwide, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The lack of schools has caused children to walk miles to get any class time. In most cases, children attend schools where they “scribble their lessons in the dirt for lack of proper learning materials or even gathering under a tree to learn,” UNESCO said.
Building Tomorrow hires Ugandan workers to help build the schools and teachers to run it once it’s been decided that a school will be built in that community. It also pays for the children’s lunches and the teacher’s salary for a year.
“They actually try to help the community find an appreciation and ownership of the schools,” said Heather Murray, a senior architecture major and member of the Ball State chapter. “[They don’t say], ‘Here, we’re going to give you a lot of money. Good luck.’”
The organization was pitched to architecture programs as a way for architecture majors to design a school in a Uganda that would ultimately be built, Stultz said.
“We talked to some professors and they were like, ‘Yeah, if you raise money we could design the school,’ but then we realized it was a bit overreaching for the first time,” she said. “We lost that architecture connection, but I feel like I gained other skills.”
People skills and learning how to run a business-related group were a few things that Stultz said she learned.
“Every other group I’ve been [in] was like, sit back and watch it happen,” she said. “But with this it was like, ‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do.’”
The Ball State chapter hosts’ different fundraising events throughout the year, but its main draw is Bike to Uganda.
Bike for Uganda is an event where individuals bike 758 miles, a 10th of the distance to Uganda, on stationary bikes at the University Green for half-hour slots or more.
A half-hour slot is $10. Participants can get sponsors or pay it themselves.
“I think that fundraising is tricky, especially on a college campus because we’re all ‘broke college kids,’ and it’s hard,” Jaben Temple, co-president of the group, said. “Just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean that someone walking down the street is.
“So you have to connect with someone on a certain level. Kind of inspire them.”
A dollar is the equivalent of 10 bricks, so a lunch swipe of $7.85 would provide nearly 80 bricks to help build a school.
“We have a school in Bugubo, Uganda, that’s going to be built,” Temple said. “Even [though it’s] Africa and Indiana, it seems very close and intimate.”
The chapter has seen verbal hostility toward those who found the cause to be unworthy or not good enough.
“You can’t please everyone,” Temple said. “The cause is less trendy than Kony 2012, but I think everyone has that ‘click moment’ at some point.”
Finding that moment was easy for Stultz.
“If you go to the Building Tomorrow website, it takes about two seconds to see who I’m doing it for,” she said. “They have tons of pictures, and you can always see who you’re helping. That’s the No. 1 thing. You can always put a face with what you’re doing and I think that helps a lot.
If you can see people and see how you’re affecting them, it makes you realize you’re doing good. I think that propels us forward.”
Seniors Murray, Stultz, Temple hope to see their efforts for the last few years pay off.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Stultz said. “The anticipation has sort of grown and we’re closer than we’ve ever been. We’re about to graduate, and it will be nice to see some kind of fruit of the labor. We started at the beginning, and we want to see it through.”?
The Bike to Uganda event started Tuesday. Today is the last day, starting at 9 a.m. on University Green.
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