Portland senior plans benefit for orphans

Casco Bay High School senior Katie Cole is organizing a benefit for two local aid organizations that support orphans in Romania, Cambodia and Sudan as part of her Senior Expedition at Casco Bay High.

The benefit will be held on March 13 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Maine Film Studio, 235 Presumpscot Street in Portland. It will feature food, music and dance from Cambodia and Sudan as well as Romanian food and videos.

Admission is $2 for students, $5 for adults and $10 per family. All proceeds will go to Orphans of the World Internationalsites.google.com/site/orphansworldinternational/), based in Gorham and The Wings of Hope Alliance for Cambodia (whacinc.com), based in Lewiston. Representatives from those organizations will be at the event to talk about their work.

All CBHS seniors choose a topic that they care are about for Senior Expedition. They research the topic, write a five-page paper and design a final product.

While other students chose to create books or informational posters as their final products, Cole came up with the idea of a benefit because she hopes to educate the community about what they can do to help orphans and to publicize the work of the local organizations. Two of her classmates will participate in the event by sharing their final products: a graphic novel about Sudan and Romania and a book about the importance of humanitarian work and the shared experiences of locals who have completed some volunteer work in other countries.