An early start to volunteering; college student spends six months in India

A young woman is spending a half a year in India helping poor children. While there, she continues her college studies via the internet. That is part of the story of Brooke McCall, who stated volunteering and making a difference in high school. She has created a web site about her current effort at Only Today org.

The Daily Press from Orange County California tells us more about the young world traveler, with this story from Greg Hardesty.

In India, her mission is twofold: Teaching English and geography to kids from the slums and refugee camps, and trying to raise $15,000 to send 50 of those students to college.

Her uncle, Chris White, who works at the Irvine office of Cisco Systems, the giant networking supplier, set up McCall to live at the India home of Lea King, a Cisco marketing executive in Bangalore, who connected McCall to several nonprofit organizations.

McCall works six days a week for the nonprofits.

Most of that time is spent at the Indira Gandhi International Academy, which educates about 230 kids from Sri Lanka who are transported each day from a refugee camp.

Outside class, she's raising money for an 8-year- old boy with a severe leg infection. The goal is to keep him in school.

McCall's other miniproject has a similar theme. She's convinced the parents of a 17-year-old girl not to marry off their daughter so that she, too, can stay in school.