My name is Matteo Ferramondo and I am a 12th grade Italian student at the George C. Marshall High School located in Falls Church, Virginia. In order to graduate my classmate Gianmarco Starke and I  have the requirement to organize and complete a volunteering project.

We decided to organize a charity fundraiser for the students of the middle school Simone De Magistris, located in the city of Calderola, province of Macerata, in the Marche Region. The decision to do such project resulted from a discussion with other Italians in my class  that we must do something connected to our Italian roots.

The Simone De Magistris school was chosen due to my aunt being one of the teachers there, therefore, it was easier for us to contact and organize with the school’s administrators. The goal of our campaign is to raise $3,000 in order to buy enough new sports supplies for the young middle school students. We believe that by doing so we are able to shine a bit of light on the tough times these students are going through. In fact, the students where first moved out of the school due to the earthquakes and were placed in temporary trailers. Now, they went back to the school, but part of the school is still inaccessible. So, we believe that our campaign can be of great help for these students during these tough times.

We welcome both small and large contributions and have set up a “gofundme” site to make it easy to contribute.  More information about the school and the project can be found at the link below.

https://www.gofundme.com/buying-sport-supplies-for-charity