Library in a box: Dreams of helping Nigerian children fulfilled

As a child in the Nigerian village of Abala, Chi Ekwenye didn't realize she was poor -- only that she had no shoes.

Her cousins, who lived in more sophisticated cities, had shoes. Some wealthier adults had shoes, but she never wore a pair until she was 8 years old. She still remembers passing around that first pair of brown sandals among all of her friends.

But she wanted shoes for her friends, too. So she promised the other villagers she would buy shoes for them when she grew up. That promise, she says, inspired her to start an orphanage, school and clinic in the rural Nigerian state of Abia, where she cares for the homeless, ill and indigent of Southeastern Nigeria.

"To me, the shoe is symbolic," she said.

More than 40 years later and a continent away, she witnessed a little girl make a similar idealistic promise.

Over dinner on a trip to Tennessee a few years ago, Dr. Ekwenye and Mary Grace Coffman began talking about reading. Dr. Ekwenye told Mary Grace that the school she directs has no library, only a few textbooks in classrooms. The child was in shock.

"I just thought every school had a library," said Mary Grace, 9, a student at Nolan Elementary School.

So Mary Grace decided the Nigerian school should have its own library and that she would find a way to make it happen.

"I think just like me, flippantly, she said, 'You should have a library.' Just like that," Dr. Ekwenye said. "I don't know if she even thought it was possible. But she has done it. She never forgot. She just never forgot."

Mary Grace and her father, Allen Coffman, spent the last few months collecting more than 12,000 books for the Right Steps School in Nigeria. Dr. Coffman and others transformed a 40-foot metal shipping container into a freestanding library with floor-to-ceiling shelves, carpet and reading nooks.

"I'm just really impressed how it went from a big metal box -- to this," Mary Grace said.

Pending approval from the Nigerian government, the container will travel from Savannah, Ga., to Nigeria, Dr. Coffman said. The brightly painted box should arrive at the school by January and needs only a few tweaks on-site to be operational, he said.

"I didn't want to just ship a bunch of boxes of books," Dr. Coffman said. "We really wanted it to come as a complete package."

Dr. Ekwenye said that, other than on TV, her 300 students never have seen a library.

"They won't believe it," she said. "For the first two months, they're only going to look at it. They won't even read -- just look at it. They'll be so amazed and so proud. They'll brag about it to others in the village."

Dr. Ekwenye said she sees a lot of herself in Mary Grace, especially after seeing her follow through on her promise.

"It didn't hit me until I saw what she had done," she said. "When I look at her, I think, 'Oh child, you don't know what you're getting into.'"

Dr. Ekwenye heads back to Nigeria next week carrying a new sense of hope and determination.

"Today, standing here at this time, I am not thinking of the many children in Africa, in Nigeria, that will go to bed hungry," she said. "I am thinking of love, of hope, of kindness, of generosity."