BRIDGEWATER - Annette Cross knows about the poverty that exists in El Salvador better than most other Canadians.

 She also knows that the lives of the people who live in the impoverished country will never improve unless someone takes the initiative to help them.

 So, she did.

 Back in 2004, Ms Cross, owner of Provincial Hearing Aid Services in Bridgewater, made her first trip to the Central American country as part of a team of volunteer specialists working with the Starkey Hearing Foundation's "So the World Can Hear" international hearing mission.

 Last March she made a return visit to El Salvador with the organization, which annually provides over 50,000 hearing aids to needy people, mostly children, all over the world.

 It was during that last mission, her fifth with the foundation, that Ms Cross found out about another issue that existed in one of the villages where they were working.

 "When we were down in El Salvador doing the mission, the school was going to be closed. We arranged to give them enough money to keep the school open," she recalls, adding the closure would have affected 150 children. "So, when I got back here, one of the girls who works with me from the Valley … knew Dave Reid from Green Solutions, and she said, 'Annette, you really should get together and meet with him. I think you guys could really do some really nice work together.'"

 Founded by Mr. Reid in 2006, Green Solutions is a not-for-profit organization which takes surplus corporate materials that are destined for a landfill and distributes them to schools, charities and other organizations both at home and abroad.

 "I got in contact with Dave and went over to meet him, and I told him that we wanted to furnish one school, at least, down in El Salvador. He said that was not a problem and he could help with that," she says.

 While Green Solutions would provide most of the materials needed at the school, it was up to Ms Cross to try and raise the $7,000 necessary to cover the cost of shipping the container that would carry them to Central America.

 "So, I did a fundraiser across Canada with my colleagues [who] donated money and besides that, we did some fundraisers here, as well, with our own staff," she says. "Fifty dollars from every hearing aid sold goes into a fund for missions and projects like this, so some of the money I had set aside went to this, too."

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 Ms Cross also raised enough extra money to purchase other items, such as paint and brushes, that were needed at the school but that Green Solutions was unable to supply.

 "And I bought a whole bunch of school supplies, too, because they didn't have that," she adds.

 Included in the cache heading southward were 150 soccer jerseys and balls which were donated by a company in Ontario, as well as 150 school desks and chairs, 10 teacher's desks, numerous storage cabinets, toilets, sinks and 60 regular standing chairs that will be used in a "Canadian library" the school is hoping to develop.

 In early January Ms Cross and her son, Cole, flew to Oakville, Ontario, where Green Solutions' main warehouse is located to be on hand and assist while the container was being loaded.

 "They had brought in 60 dual-processing computers that were allotted to go," she says. "And they basically looked at me and said anything in the warehouse on the wish list, anything you think they need, if we can fit it in the container, it can go."

 It took two days for staff and volunteers to meticulously pack the materials for transport, a process that Ms Cross described as "amazing.

 "There was one guy who's a firefighter who lives an hour from there, worked all night and came there all day for two days to help load the container," she says. "It's really nice to see everybody come together for a common cause."

 By the end of January, the container had reached its destination, carrying enough items to not only completely fulfil the needs of the one school Ms Cross had set out to help, but also to assist at four others.

 "To see the passion that the Green Solutions staff have behind everything they do is quite amazing," Ms Cross says. "And to know that whole container, all of that would have been headed for the landfill. So it's twofold. You're helping a Third World country and you're helping the environment. I just think it's a win-win situation."

posted on 03/10/09