Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I got a C in 9th grade art a million years ago. When the color coordination gene was dealt, my mom was out buying a diet coke. That is what makes this story so special.

Catherine is a young, smart Ugandan woman who didn't have the money to attend high school. Her family left northern Uganda when her village was attacked by rebels. They could barely buy food let alone afford to send Catherine to school. Catherine had to stay home for a year to try to earn enough money to go back to school. She attended the Pit-tek Women's Association weekly meetings. The Pit-tek Association is a support group of women who've been displaced because of rebel fighting. They started making lovely bead necklaces to sell to try to make money. Catherine attended the meetings and started making beautiful paper beads.

Catherine did get the creativity gene from her mother, because she took the beads she made and created a lovely bead curtain Regretfully, finding someone to pay $600 for a beaded curtain wasn't going to happen. Outreach Uganda stepped in to help Catherine sell her curtain. They shipped the curtain to Denver and I started to hold beading parties to make necklaces from the curtain. With every necklace my friends made, we were one step closer to helping Catherine with her dream of returning to school. (She wants to be a statistician. I didn't even know what that was when I was in high school.)

If you'd like to help send Catherine to school by buying a necklace or sponsoring her, go to www.grassrootsuganda.org, or contact Carol Davis, President of Outreach Uganda, and a fellow Highlands Ranch resident. Her email address is Carol@outreachuganda.