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A Taylor-made world

Published Thursday, May 08, 2008 2:28 PM

By Sharon Gnau
Summerville Journal Scene ®

Sharon Gnau

Taylor MacLellan shows some of the pencils she and her friends have collected to send to the children in Iraq.

Never mind the fact that she’s only eight years old, Reeves Elementary third grader Taylor MacLellan is out to change the world. It’s something she’s been working on since the age of five, when she first saw Oprah on television.

“I wasn’t really supposed to be watching it,” she says.

But she saw enough of a segment about world poverty to know how fortunate she was. It had a huge impact on the way she views the world.

After the show, her mother Avis noticed her daughter was crying, but had no idea that she was crying about what she had seen – terrifying images of grinding poverty, something that had never touched Taylor’s young life.

But the crying stopped and was quickly replaced with a determination to do what she could to change things. She been plugging away at it ever since.

That was around Christmastime, and young Taylor, five at the time, told her mother she wanted to do something to help.

“Maybe I could tell Santa to give my toys to the poor children,” she said.

Her daughter’s enthusiasm moved Avis to take action, so they came up with the idea to have a Christmas party and ask guests bring gifts suitable for children. They called the event “The Reason for the Season.”

Word about the party quickly spread and ultimately, it was a great success with 223 gifts collected for the less fortunate.

The family continues to host the party; this Christmas will mark the fourth and to Taylor’s delight, the gift count keeps going up.

“I knew God would take care of them,” she says.

Now, at the age of eight, Taylor has additional things on her mind and she’s set out to fix them. She’s concerned about pollution, and with the help of friends from school, is circulating a poster – a don’t litter contract of sorts and asking people to sign it as a pledge to stop polluting and to help clean up the mess that other people have made.

“I would really like to call the President and talk to him about this,” she asserts.

Over the past several months, she’s also become concerned with the condition of schools in Iraq. After talking to Lt. Colonel Billy Wray of the 360th Airborne, Civil Affairs Brigade, a family friend who was home on leave from his duties at Camp Slayer near Baghdad, she learned that kids in schools there don’t even have pencils – something we all take for granted.

After collecting all of her extra pencils to send over, she realized they would probably need a lot more, so she launched a campaign to collect as many as possible.

“I decided to call it ‘Pencils for Peace’ and I’ve been going around school collecting pencils,” she says. “My friends Sienna Kenny and Lamarre MacPherson are collecting pencils too.”

Taylor says the response at school has been good. “My classmate David gave us 12 of his own pencils and 17 BiLo pencils because his grandmother works there.”

Still, Taylor knew she could do more, so she’s branched out, asking businesses and retail stores to give.

“Sometimes people don’t have pencils, so they donate money. My mom will take me to the store and we’ll buy as many pencils as we can with it.”

She opens a plastic box revealing two dollars inside. “We’ll have to go back to the store soon.”

So the young philanthropist will continue to collect until she thinks she has an adequate supply of pencils to send to the students in Iraq. Her goals are lofty.

“I would really like to send like – 7 truckloads over there. They really need them. How are they going to do their homework if they don’t have pencils?”

The pencils for peace will ultimately be sent to Colonel Wray, who will distribute them, along with other humanitarian supplies to help the children in Iraq.

Since Taylor is a student and has her own homework to deal with, she can’t knock on every door, even with the help of her friends, because they have homework too. If you would like to help, Taylor says you can contact her parents, Roderick and Avis MacLellan at maclellanbagpipe@bellsouth.net or call them at 832-3903.

Contact Sharon Gnau at sgnau@journalscene.com.

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