Raising the Bar

A Christian-based, non-profit organization provides children locally and internationally with tools for a better education.


Edu-Pack Founder Adopts Haitian Teen

By Emma Pickle

A local nonprofit organization is raising the bar in its efforts to give children across the world the opportunity to expand their personal knowledge and horizons in education.

Man on a Mission

Edu-Pack is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1999 by Cobb County resident Crawford Hitt. Hitt founded the organization after a short visit to Haiti in which he realized how poor the country was and how parents were barely able to send their children to school.


"On my dad's mission trip to Haiti, he helped distribute items on to the poverty stricken Haitian people. Once they ran out of gifts, they gave away golf pencils and notebooks. All of the mothers started crying because they were so overjoyed their children could go to school. He then realized that kids needed supplies to attend school, but most families couldn't even afford food," daughter, Sarah Hitt, said.

Getting Started

Hitt established this nonprofit organization as an international organization that operates off of donations from individuals and money raised through fundraisers. Not only does Edu-Pack help families of children in Haiti, it also helps individuals in countries such as Bahamas, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the U.S. In the U.S., Edu-Pack provided relief after Hurricane Katrina.

The items that are given to these children include but are not limited to: Composition Notebooks, crayons, erasers, glue sticks, manual pencil sharpeners, pencils, pens, rulers, scissors, pencil pouches, and Bibles. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to participate because they need all of the help they can get.

How To Be Involved

Getting involved in this organization and board of directors appreciate all help given. Edu-Pack operates year-round and is constantly encouraging individuals to donate money or supplies. The first thing to do is to contact a representative who will present more information on the organization and will inform you about the tools that are necessary to get started in transforming "Today's children into tomorrow's leaders."

"Volunteering is very simple with this organization. Nothing is expected and everything is appreciated," Hitt said.

There are two specific ways to become involved in Edu-Pack. The first is your group may buy the supplies needed and include a donation of $10 for each bag to be with that, Edu-Pack will buy a backpack, water bottle, Gospel track, domestic logistics, and handling and processing fees associated.

The other way to be involved is to simply send a donation to the organization. Each individual pack costs about $20, but every donation is appreciated, no matter its value. You may also wish to be more hands on. Everyone is encouraged to join Edu-Pack on the mission trips in which we distribute the packs.

What Now?

The purpose and mission of Edu-Pack is, "Edu-Pack is an evangelical mission organization that is non-profit and serves the poor by providing educational supplies to those in need in the U.S. and other countries. It is our goal to motivate Chrisitans to become active in service to the church worldwide and to empower indigenous pastors through partnership." In 2010, Edu-Pack has set and plans to implement their goal of delivering 15,000 Edu-Packs to children in need.

"Every penny counts. Every pencil matters. If we only change one child's life, then all of our hardwork has paid of. We really want to not only help these families, but also just love on them and help them understand how much Christ loves them," Hitt said.

Edu-Pack Founder Adopts Haitian Teen

A 15-year-old Haitian teenager was legally adopted last February by the founder of a Cobb County born non-profit organization.

Crawford Hitt accepted Handel Estivene into his family this past February after the devastating earthquake in Haiti almost a year ago. Hitt is the founder of a Christian-based non-profit organization that donates school supplies to children across the world whose families are unable to provide the necessities their children need. Hitt was corresponding with Estivene's father, a pastor in Haiti, after the earthquake and both agreed it would be highly beneficial for Estivene to move to the U.S. in order to finish his education due to the poor condition of post-earthquake Haitian schools.

Estivene is a legal citizen and says that due to the fact that it would be difficult for his parents to obtain long-term Visas he will return to Haiti to be with his family after he finishes his education. Estivene says that being adopted by the Hitts has changed his life dramatically and allowed him the opportunity that many may never be able to have.

"The Hitts have had to show me what living in America is like. It is very different than my life in Haiti. Everything in Haiti is a party, here there are a lot more rules and structure. School is also much easier here and less strict," Estivene said.

Airline Wi-Fi Sparks Security Concerns

Summary blurb

Travelers Doubt Bomb Theory

By Christine Negroni

For the AJC

Even as airline passengers struggle with whether they should have the full-body security scan or go for the "enhanced" pat-down, another potential safety issue has arisen: Does the coming of Wi-Fi service to passengers pose any sort of danger aboard the plane?

The question arose after Yemeni terrorists tried recently -- and failed -- to destroy two U.S.-bound cargo planes by stuffing printer cartridges full of explosives and then detonating the charges in flight.

British explosives consultant Roland Alford created a stir when he told New Scientist magazine that Wi-Fi is a "Pandora's box" for terrorists and that giving passengers Internet access "gives a bomber lots of options for contacting a device on an aircraft.”

A number of airline workers, security professionals and technologists say they agree that Wi-Fi can create serious security risks. The Association of Flight Attendants, for example, has asked the government to ban Wi-Fi.

“We recognize the potential of the threat and are looking at it closely,” said Gideon Ewers, the spokesman for the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations. His reaction was mirrored by the Washington. D.C.-based Air Line Pilots Association.

“We need to fully explore what could the bad guys do, how could this be turned against us,” said Robb Powers, a Boeing 737 pilot and chairman of the national security committee for ALPA.

Security Experts Worry About Wi-Fi

Security expert and blogger Bruce Schneier dismissed such concerns in a blog posting last week: "Put together a sloppy and unsuccessful package bomb with an imagined triggering mechanism, and you have a new and dangerous threat that -- even though it was a threat ever since the first airplane got Wi-Fi capability -- must be immediately dealt with right now," he wrote. "Please, let's not ever tell the TSA about timers. Or altimeters."

The Yemeni bomb plot demonstrates one way Wi-Fi could facilitate terrorists, said Dinkar Mokadam, an occupational safety expert with the Association of Flight Attendants. He said wifi Wi-Fi and Internet-enabled calls could enable a terrorist to maneuver around the U.S. ban on the use of cell phones on airplanes and actually trigger a bomb.

“This sort of a detonation doesn’t require a voice," Mokadam said. "It requires communication to a cell phone and you can text to a device and have it go off. You don’t have to even talk to it.”

DHS Considering Banning Wi-Fi

Banning Wi-Fi use completely or during high security-alert periods are two of several proposals the Department of Homeland Security is considering. TSA spokesman Greg Soule said DHS was “using the latest intelligence and state of the art technology to address ever-evolving threats.”

Some travelers say they fail to see the risk.

“I don’t think the Wi-Fi to trigger a bomb is something to worry about,” said Jon Safran, who lives in Atlanta and travels at least once a week. “I’m just not quite sure it’s technically feasible to do all that, get it through security and trigger it. And I guess you’d have to be on the plane yourself dialing it in.

“I think one or two incidents shouldn’t be a reason to fundamentally change our lives,” Safran said. He said he thought a ban of Wi-Fi would be an overreaction.

Scott LaGrand, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, and recently passed through was at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, said he travels often for work and has been on flights with in-flight wi-fi Wi-Fi but also hasn’t used it. before.

“If there’s proof that those sorts of things could happen, then I would support not having Wi-Fi available,” said LaGrand, who is also a former Atlanta Knights hockey player. “Because it’s not something that most travelers have become accustomed to, I don’t think we would be missing it.”

While the Yemeni bombs contained cell phone components, they do did not appear to have been designed to detonate with a phone call but by cell phone alarm; that is, communication with the plane would not have been necessary to set off the bombs. But since the call-activated bomb is an established technique, terrorists could conceivably hide devices in checked luggage and then trigger them through an Internet-enabled call, according to Roland Alford’s father and business partner, explosives engineer Sidney Alford.

The debate comes at a time when airlines are ramping up their marketing of Wi-Fi service to passengers. AirTran and Delta Air Lines, for example, have partnered with Google to offer free Wi-Fi aboard hundreds of their planes during the holidays.

At Southwest Airlines, where Internet service is being installed on airplanes, spokesman Chris Mainz said their broadband doesn’t work that way.

“Our Wi-Fi product will not enable cell phone-to-cell phone interaction and it blocks Voice over Internet Protocol,” Mainz said.

Whether Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the system that delivers voice communication over the Internet, can be completely restricted is not entirely certain. Aircell, the airline Internet company in Illinois that provides broadband to airlines including Delta, AirTran and American Airlines under the name Gogo, declined to be interviewed for this story. But earlier this year, Aircell released a statement saying it is “extremely difficult to stop every instance of VoIP.”

Delta Air Lines declined to comment on its security practices.

In opposing the use of cellphones on airplanes in the U.S., DHS, the FBI and the Department of Justice said in 2005 that they were concerned that terrorists or hijackers could use the phones to “facilitate a coordinated attack,” either with someone on the ground, on another airplane or even among people sitting in different sections of the same airplane.

Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi contributed to this article.

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