Robertsport, Grand Cape Mount – As part of a plan to help renovate its alma mater, Robertsport High School (RHS)/ Frank G. Chenoweth Institute (FGCI) Alumni Association has donated over fifty (50) chairs to the only government high school in Robertsport City, Grand Cape Mount County.
The donation, which was made recently to the school, is expected to ease (enhance) the shortage of chairs in order to create a conducive learning environment for students at the school. Even though
RHS and FGCI are operating under one alumni association, even though the Chenoweth Institute used to be the night school sharing building with RHS, but it no longer exists.
According to the Alumni Association’s co-chairman, Eric Massaley, the donation was also part of a partial response to the various urgent needs of the school in the county.
He explained that the school basically lacks everything including the library and laboratory.
Massaley also added the building is in a deplorable shape to the extent that it has leaking roof, termite-infested, crumbling windows, doors, falling ceilings, unusable toilets, non-existent cafeteria and a clogged drainage system.
He, however, noted that RHS/FGCI Alumni Association has renewed its commitment to the infrastructural rebirth and total restoration of the school.
Massaley added, “So the Alumni Association has decided that it will help this school. They decided that they will not allow this school to be any less than any school anywhere. So that’s why we are here. The first step we took after we did our fundraising, although we did not get all the monies we expected to get was to do something and the principal told us if you want to do anything, the first thing to do, give us some chairs because we have up to 40-50 of our students, who are not seated regularly, when they come to school. Sometimes they hang around or they stand so we decided to do the chair.”
In his speech, the Alumni Association’s co-chairman told the students that they would not relent in their efforts to make the only government school a better place for students in that part of the country.
“The alumni have the school at heart and would continue to undertake a number of projects to aid in the development of the school,” he opined.
Massaley said in the spirit of true love for their beloved alma mater and commitment to help the school, urged the students and administrative staff at that institution to do all they can to make RHS great again.
“We want to restore academic excellence because Cape Mount is noted for book people and this is why we want you to pass WAEC/WASSCE in the numbers. We want our school to be the best among schools in this country. The next thing I want you to know that we are thinking of doing is to make this place useful even during the rainy season—we understand that some of you cannot even enter the school building during the rainy season because it floods, so what we’re going to do is we will try to help with a drainage system,” he stated.
Also speaking, Henry T. Pinney, treasurer of the Association, thanked the school administrators for the hard work they are doing to impart knowledge to the next future generation of Liberia.
“So, for and on behalf of the Alumni Association of RHS/FGCI, we would like to present these chairs for the use of the students. We hope this can go a long way in meeting the needs of the school and students that you have here,” he said.
Receiving the chairs, Principal Samuel Kesselly, expressed gratitude to the Alumni Association for the furniture and said that the generosity was touching and timely.
He said, “We want to say thank you. This should be my sixth year at the Robertsport High School and chair problems have always surfaced and giving us these chairs now, I do believe that all of our students here will have chairs to sit on beginning tomorrow. Something that the government could not do immediately, the alumni saw it wise to come because it reaches to a point where I could no-longer bear it.”
Kesselly, however, said that with the availability of the chairs on campus, he will ensure that they are well protected for the future or “five years from now when you return, you will still see them on this campus.”
He also ended by offering prayers for the Alumni Association that wherever the fund or money came from to buy the chairs, God should replenish it in abundance.
Meanwhile, funds to help renovate and provide needed facilities to the school were raised jointly by both the Liberia and USA-based chapters.