Children who bathe in dirty rivers and fend for themselves on the streets.

Children who, if lucky enough to live in an orphanage, will get two meals of beans and rice a day and, once a week, a piece of chicken. Children who can attend orphanage schools - schools without books, pencils, paper and certainly not computers.

All this in a country that is a mere one-hour flight from Florida.

When Liz Wysong Hoffart showed her students pictures from the Fayeton Orphanage in Gonaives, Haiti, the third-graders knew they had to do something.

So Kahoa Elementary School made the Haitian orphans at Fayeton their schoolwide project for this year - and perhaps years beyond.

Students, teachers and parents continue to dream up plans to raise money for the orphanage adopted by The Nebraska Global Orphan Project in Lincoln.

Formerly called One Cause Lincoln, the orphan project is committed to providing $150,000 a year to feed, educate and give medical care to the 250 children ages 3 to 16 living at Fayeton.

Four adoptive families from Lincoln's Berean Church make up the core of The Nebraska Global Orphan Project. The nondenominational group works with the Christian-based The Global Orphan Project (previously called C3 Missions) of Kansas City.

In an ideal world, every orphan would find a "forever home," said Susan Browne, an adoptive parent and founding member of the Lincoln group.

But with 143 million orphaned and abandoned children worldwide, the goal is unrealistic.

So the Nebraska orphan project fine-tuned its focus to helping all children receive the food, care and education they need to grow up to be productive adults. Adults who can lead their countries into a better future.

"Our concept is to build a village and raise them in a community," Browne said.

"We haven't lost our original focus," said Kathy Deaver, another founding member of the orphan project. "But in the meantime, our eyes have been opened to the huge need for orphan care. The need is urgent."

This past summer, 11 members of the Lincoln group flew to Gonaives.

"I wasn't prepared for what I saw," Browne said.

Inside the orphanage compound, children shared beds, drinking water was trucked in, and meals were cooked over an open flame in the second story of a concrete structure.

Outside the orphanage, the situation was worse.

"When I looked outside the compound and saw (the people), my heart sank," Browne said.

Eighty percent of Haitians live in poverty; 54 percent live in abject poverty, Browne said. Unemployment is 60 percent.

Last year, the island was hit with two powerful hurricanes in 30 days. Three thousand people died. The country was devastated.

"In one day we saw 700 orphans in four orphanages," Deaver said. All were in Gonaives - a city the size of Lincoln.

A pastor and his wife oversee the Fayeton orphanage. They have hired about 12 women - "mommas" - to help take care of the children. Most "mommas" have children of their own; working at the orphanage assures them and their children two meals a day, Browne said.

It costs $25 to care for one child for a month. It costs another $10 a month to educate a child. Those costs do not include medical care or the upkeep of the orphanage buildings.

Funding and supporting just one orphanage is a start, Browne said.

"It is such a huge problem. Unless a lot of groups and organizations get involved, we can't ever make a dent in it," Deaver said.

Groups like Kahoa Elementary School, where students and parents not only are giving but are learning about Haiti, its people and its culture.

Hoffart would love for the children to become pen pals.

Teachers are asking students to donate to The Nebraska Global Orphan Project in lieu of giving them holiday gifts.

Early next year, the classrooms will begin a "loose change" fund drive. The hope is that each classroom can raise $365, enough to fund one orphan for an entire year, Hoffart said.

And in the spring, a schoolwide garage sale is in the works, with all money donated to the orphans, and any unsold items donated to local charities.

All are answers to the Nebraska Global Orphan Project's prayers and its commitment "to help those who cannot help themselves," Browne said.

"Orphans are our passion," she said.