STURBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s another morning of bottle and can collection for Lynne Brouillette. She picks up from drop-off sites, more than 50 neighbors and 12 businesses in Sturbridge several days a week so kids in Africa can go to school.

“Never in a million years did I think I would be working in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” she said. “I didn’t even know where it was other than on the continent of Africa.”

In 2008, Brouillette founded the non-profit Kids in the Congo. They’ve since helped nearly 200 students in poverty receive a high school education.

“In Congo, we are dealing with the poorest of the poor,” Brouillette said. “In 2019, they were the poorest country in the world. Now, they are the fifth poorest country.”

Brouillette said she grew up low-income in Holyoke and she always wanted to do some kind of mission work. It wasn’t until she met a Congolese priest at church that she finally knew how she could help make a difference.

“Father Sal talked about this schooling. He used to walk to school barefoot in tattered clothes with a little piece of chalk and a chalkboard,” she said. 

The average annual income in the Congo is roughly $434 and it costs $75 a year to send a child to school. Brouillette said families live in small huts and most don’t have regular access to food or water.

“When you see it first hand, it changes you,” Brouillette said. “You know, here I’m taking a shower, well I’m not going to take a half-hour shower ever again. You know all that water going down the drain, I just think, holy cow.”

Lynne is gearing up for her third trip to the Congo next month where she’ll meet with sponsored students who have gone on to become teachers or work with NGO’s in the country.

“The very first school I went to in 2014 we had one child in that school in that village. As soon as she saw me, she knew who I was,” she said. “She went right into my arms, it was amazing.”

Brouillette said right now, they send about one child a family to school and in return that child’s experience will help strengthen entire families and villages.

“My hope always is maybe we will have a Nobel Peace Prize winner or a future president of the country and they will make a difference and combat the corruption and greed,” Brouillette said.