Students and staff of the St Paul’s Academy primary school at Tafaigata expressed joy and thankfulness for gifts they received from the Foundation of Atoa Family, Utah USA.
St Paul’s Academy is located at the old prison Tafaigata area. The school has an enrollment of nearly 400 students.
St Paul’s Academy and Pesega Primary School received toys for the children, as well as reading books, stationery, pens, crayons, calculators and an assortment of learning aids, all packed with love and delivered from Utah USA where the Atoa Family Foundation is based.
School principal Leota Wong expressed her appreciation to the Atoa Family Foundation for blessing them, not only to make their work easier to taech the children, but for the resources to help develop the children’s reading and writing skills.
“Thank you Atoa Family foundation for the lovely gifts you have provided.. all of this will help us with the children’s learning, to develop their knowledge and skills.. Faafetai tele lava”.
The distribution of gifts last week from a container sent by Papalii Sam Atoa and his family was carried out by the team at Manumailagi Weddings, Events and Landscapers. It also included gifts for Mapuifagalele home for the elderly and the Samoa Victim Support Group Campus of Hope.
Responding to questions from Samoa Global News Papalii Sam Atoa said they first started coming to Samoa when the devastation of the tsunami hit, and they have been bringing a container every year since.
“Our first year was May 2010 when we came with my Volleyball team. I have been back every year since, except for last year and this year due to border closures,” he said.
“We had planned to come to Samoa last year when COVID interrupted our trip. We had a container ready to go but it got canceled. We decided this year to still send the container even though we are not able to travel”, said Papalii.
Management and staff of Manumailagi Weddings, Events and Landscapers had distributed the container goods with gifts all day Friday and on Saturday morning, also visited vulnerable families at the Falelauniu area, identified through the LDS Church.
“I asked Amituanai Iosua and Lemalu Elaine and the LDS church to help with the distribution and I am grateful to them for being so kind to deliver the donations to the various areas for us,” said Papalii.
“I am grateful to the following people for their generous donation that has made this possible: My wife’s family the Jorgensen’s family, Marty and Melinda Duffin, Sita and Todd Jasper, Paul Diamond with Operation Give, Dr Karl Weenig and many others”.
The Atoa Family Foundation container also includes each year, medical supplies for the Ministry of Health and this year gift packs will also be distributed to the Children’s ward.
(13)
