GREELY, Colo. — After retiring from the Colorado State Patrol,Credit Union of Colorado Board Member Shirley Forbes lives a lifethat is far from the typical retiree.

In 2001, Forbes took her first trip to Africa on a tour groupsafari and began what would become the Tanzania School MissionTeam.

“On the last day of my trip we visited a school and I literallyfell in love with the children,” Forbes said. “I promised them thatI would come back.”

On her flight home Forbes came up with the idea for the TanzaniaSchool Mission Team, which she started through her church in 2002.The team has raised over $60,000 for schools in Tanzania and hasprovided students with books, school supplies, clothing and toys.Forbes will be making her seventh trip to Tanzania with the teamthis fall.

The team concentrates on two primary schools and two secondaryschools in Tanzania. Fuka Primary School is one of the schoolsForbes visits and has helped complete the construction of a tworoom kindergarten that holds approximately 200 kindergarteners.

“The children sit five to a desk and share one book,” Forbessaid. “When they're given a notebook they literally use every spaceon the paper. They write three lines in one space and write in themargins, they don't waste anything.”

Banjika is a secondary school where Forbes and her mission teamworked to pave the floor the old fashioned way. They had to siftsand, carry bags of cement, mix with shovels and carry water by thebucket full in order to complete the project.

“We didn't have a cement truck; we did hard labor.”

Each time the team visits Africa they provide a feast at oneschool for the children. They go to the market to purchase all thefood and cook it for the children. At one school the team fed 1,100children and 800 at another. Each school they visit they alsodeliver a homemade book bag with a beanie baby, a work book that ispurchased in Africa to help the economy, a paperback chapter book,crayons, pencils and pens, a ruler, a calculator for secondarystudents and a trinket of some kind. While most of the items aredonated, Forbes and the wives of troopers she knows from theColorado State Patrol make the bags. So far the team has given out5,000 bags.

“They've never been given anything in their life, so to justgive them a pencil they think they have the world,” Forbes said.“They don't have anything and they will cling to whatever you givethem.”

To raise funds for the team Forbes makes specialty pillowcaseswith Disney characters, sports teams, animals and other designsthat she sells for $12 and donates 100% of the funds she makes. Sofar she has made more than 5,000 cases.

Forbes' church also contributes to the team as well as peoplethat Forbes has never even met.

“Many times people that go to Africa and have the same guidesthat I had will hear about me through them and they then contributeto the fund.”

The Credit Union of Colorado makes a donation to each tripForbes makes, they donate space for her to sell her pillow cases,loan her projectors so that she can make presentations, pay herwire fees for her to wire money to her credit union account inAfrica. The credit union has donated shirts and items for the bookbags and has paid for her to ship over extra items to give to thechildren.

Forbes said that each time she goes she learns a little more andsees the results of her previous trips as she sees childrencarrying the bags and trinkets and wearing donated shirts.

“We're not covering the whole country, but we're spreading alittle bit of light to a small part of Tanzania,” she said.

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