About two months ago, Waddell paraprofessional Ligia Aristizabal told me that through her parish priest, she found out about an impoverished school in Santiago, Chile named Pablo Neruda Elementary School. This school serves one of the most impoverished communities in Santiago. The school is named after a Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), who is recognized as one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971.
Students at Pablo Neruda School are just finishing their summer vacation and will be returning to school very soon. This is a school with very limited resources. Things such as paper, pencils and crayons, things we take for granted here in Manchester, are in very short supply. Pencils and crayons are considered prized possessions at Pablo Neruda School.