September 2026 — From 95 Lights to 200+: Our Fundraising Progress
The idea for our summer reading program started in my 10th grade AP World History classroom.
My AP World History teacher grew up in the Central African Republic, and throughout the year, he would often tell us stories about his childhood and what it was like growing up there. Sometimes they were connected to what we were learning, and sometimes they were just stories he wanted to share. Either way, they slowly gave me a perspective of Africa that I had never gotten from a textbook.
As part of our AP World History curriculum, we also read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. One quote we discussed specifically stayed with me: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
I kept thinking about that quote, especially after traveling to Tanzania twice. Before those trips, so much of what I thought I knew about Africa came from movies, textbooks, news, and stories told by people outside of the continent. I realized that many students growing up in China might have the same limited understanding that I once had.
That was when I got the idea of teaching Things Fall Apart to Chinese international students.
Throughout the summer, I started planning close-reading sessions around the novel. What originally began as an idea to discuss a book eventually turned into a seven-day online close-reading program. I didn’t want the sessions to only focus on characters and literary devices. I wanted students to understand the history and context behind the story as well.
We started from the beginning, looking at questions that I once had myself. Why did African and European civilizations develop so differently? How did geography and environmental factors influence that development? Why do many African countries struggle with poverty today? Why can a single African country have dozens, or even hundreds, of languages spoken within its borders?
From there, we moved into Achebe’s story and looked closely at Igbo culture, religion, gender roles, justice, family, and eventually the arrival of European missionaries and colonial rule. Instead of seeing Africa as one place with one story, I wanted the students to begin noticing the complexity that I had only started understanding myself.
At the same time, the reading program became our first major fundraiser for One Meter of Sunshine. Each student’s signup was priced at the equivalent of five solar lights. By the end of the live program, the students who joined us had funded 198 solar lights.
But I didn’t want the project to end when the seven days were over.
I recorded the lessons and turned them into a recorded version of the program so that students could continue learning from them afterward. So far, those recordings have raised another $595, enough for approximately 198 more solar lights at $3 each.
What I originally thought would simply be a summer reading club became something much bigger than I expected. Students halfway across the world were learning about African history and literature while directly helping other students gain more time to read and study after sunset.
For me, that became the most meaningful part of the program. Things Fall Apart taught me the importance of who gets to tell a story. Through this program, I hope we can continue learning those stories while turning what we learn into something tangible. One book, one conversation, and one student at a time, reading can quite literally become light.
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