Brick by Brick, Cooperstown elementary students are working together to build a classroom for students in Kuran, India.

CCS students completed a crayon and pencil drive last month to send to the Indo-International school which was created by the NINASH Foundation, founded by SUNY philosophy professor Ashok Malhotra.

Students are now going to hold a penny drive to raise $500 for a classroom to be built.

"Every classroom will start a drive and make their own bank," said elementary school guidance counselor Christine McBreaty-Hulse.

For every $5 a class raises, a brick will be placed near the main office to signify the building of a classroom. Teachers names will be printed on the brick to show the totals from each class.

"We are going to make it a little competitive," said McBreaty-Hulse.

The Cooperstown Rotary Club has already pledged $500 towards the initiative, said Edmund Hart, president of Rotary.

Bill Rath, CCS high school Philosophy club advisor and adjunct for State University of New York at Oneonta recently talked at a Rotary Club meeting about his travels to India with the SUNY Oneonta Abroad Program.

"It was a pretty compelling presentation," said Hart. "We've committed $500, but we are also looking into leveraging it."

Rotary is looking to increase their pledge and the school's pledge with the help of the Rotary district and Rotary International Foundation, said Hart.

The cost for one classroom was estimated at $2500-$2700, and can hold up to 50 students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade, said McBreaty-Hulse.

"We can't really understand the kind of poverty over there," Rath said recently. "At least half the kids are coming to school in bare feet, at best, in sweaters in weather that was in the upper thirties."

Classrooms are without furniture, he described. There are no desks, students sit on mats on the floor to learn.

"It is a win-win situation," said recently by Teresa Gorman, CCS elementary school principal.

Not only will the students in India benefit from the fundraising, but the CCS students will benefit from the "act of giving," she said.

The principal of the school in Dunlod, A.V. George, had visited the elementary students recently and toured the school.

McBreaty-Hulse said the visit was very educational for students.