Thousands of pounds of donated clothing will soon be shipped from Alberta to orphanages halfway around the world thanks to a massive effort, which started with just one little girl.
Two years ago, now eight-year old Kaelyn Koenernick-Solberg was getting ready to go on a family trip to Laos, when her mom showed her a video of an orphanage there of 500 kids they'd be visiting.
"And her first question was 'well, how many kids are 500?'" recalls her mom, Deanna Koebernick, who told her daughter it was about the number of students in her school.
"Then she was the one, actually, who pieced that together, and said 'well if I have all these clothes, then what if all the kids in my school have extra clothes?'"
The family ended up taking 1,200 pieces of clothes in six hockey bags then.
Now, they've managed to completely fill an entire SeaCan shipping container to the brim with donations not just from students in Kaelyn's Graminia school in Spruce Grove, but also schools as far as Calgary.
The grade-three student who started it all thinks it's great that so many people have joined what's become the Give a Shirt campaign.
"It also feels really great to be helping these kids because they just don't have anything there," she says.
The eight year-old still remembers seeing children sleeping on pieces of plywood, with no mattress, blanket or pillow. But despite how little they had, she says the kids still seemed happy.
"The girls got really excited if there was something sparkly and the boys got really excited if there was a hockey jersey."
Kaelyn's mom says they asked for clothing because it's something that everybody here has, and it's more tangible than a cheque.
"(It involves) kids going home, taking something that's theirs, bringing it here, sorting it, packing it, putting it in the container..and they're going to know it's going right from that container to another child's hands. And I think that's important."
Kaelyn's classmates will get to follow what happens when the clothes get to Laos on Facebook and through a blog.
Kendra Orris, a teacher at Graminia School, is amazed at the interest the students have taken in the project.
"They'll say 'well, think about the kids in the orphanage. We have these things for a snack right now and they don't have anything,'" she says. "So it's making a huge impact on them."
The conversations also continue at home.
Kaelyn's mom has heard her daughter telling her friends about the children she encountered in Laos, and admits she's proud.
Koebernick, now a lawyer, says she grew up quite poor and knows what it's like not to have very much.
"And (Kaelyn's) living a completely different life than I lived. So part of the reason that we take her to the places we do is that so she can see how fortunate she is," her mother explains.
It appears to be working, as Kaelyn admits she feels very grateful for the life she has.
In March, she'll get to return to Laos and personally hand out the clothes she's helped collect.
Money has also been collected to build new dorms, as well as a water filtration system.
The SeaCan was donated, as was money to pay for the shipping. A farmer in Saskatchewan also donated 500,000 Aeroplan miles for flights. The money that would have been used for those has instead amounted to a $6,000 donation.
While the family is no longer looking for clothing donations, the second phase of their project will be to raise $35,000 to build new dorms at the orphanages.
"We are already at $10,000 with very little effort," Koebernick tells Global Edmonton.
Those behind the charity are in the process of turning the campaign into a non-profit organization.
With files from Kendra Slugoski, Global News
© Global News. A division of Shaw Media Inc., 2013.