For our final 2019 newsletter, we asked a former student, Malin, to share her story of how your donations have changed her life. While the Spitler School Foundation has always focused on funding education, your donations gave us the rare opportunity to go beyond the classroom in changing Malin’s life.

For background, Malin was a precocious little girl whose family lived directly behind Spitler School. She began kindergarten soon after the school was established. One of our donors noticed in a photograph that Malin had a problem with one of her eyes, and the donor gave us recommendations as to how we might help. Because of your donations, we were able to arrange for Malin to see an optometrist who diagnosed her with divergent strabismus, sometimes known as “lazy eye.” With proper treatment and the use of special eye patches Malin’s eye was corrected, and she excelled as a student at Spitler School.

She continued her education through the 10th grade, but due to her family’s financial situation, she needed to start working. We hope that Malin will be able to continue her education in the future.

We invite you to read Malin’s own words of thanks for what she has been able to accomplish because of your generous donations to the Spitler School Foundation.

How has getting education at the Spitler School changed your life or the life of your family?
My life has changed from negative to positive since I was educated right by Spitler School. It has taught me general knowledge to live in the society positively. I profoundly thank Spitler School Foundation that has always been supporting my education. The foundation has supported both finances and supplies. My study life was wonderful as I’ve got enough studying supplies including books, pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, and a bicycle when I graduated.

I was born with divergent strabismus eye. I felt like I was born different. However, Spitler started to give me a hope and dream. I had to put an eye-patch on my eye for several years as a treatment process and a good progress sign had started to shine. My divergent strabismus eye started going back as other normal people’s eyes. I couldn’t believe SSF could possibly help to fix it and it’s always been in my mind.

Because my family was struggling with finance, I have to force myself to start working to earn some wages for my family. I’m now working as barista in a restaurant at National Museum which I could earn $120 wages per month.

Therefore, my education ended by the end of grade 10. I would love to pursue my study if possible.

If you did not get an education, what do you think you would be doing right now instead?
Without education I would end up being illiterate, no job and have no idea how big is the outside world. I would never be able to use my little knowledge of English to communicate with the customers where I’m working.