‘Kat’ Brammer honored at ARC Heroes Breakfast

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School fifth-grade stu­dent Eka­te­rina Bram­mer was hon­ored dur­ing the Novem­ber 14 Amer­i­can Red Cross Delaware County Chapter’s 2012 Heroes Break­fast for a Stu­dent Essay entry rec­og­niz­ing her hero, Mar­garet Cole, founder of Euro­pean Adop­tion Consultants.

Eka­te­rina, who prefers to be called “Kat”, was adopted at two-and-a-half-years-old by her par­ents, Michelle and Brad Bram­mer, through Cole’s agency, EAC, from St. Peters­burg, Russia.

In her essay, Kat wrote: “My hero is Mar­garet Cole. She founded EAC, an adop­tion agency, in 1991. It started when her 6-week-old baby died. Mar­garet got con­nected with adop­tion and adopted her first child from Rus­sia. She then worked to open an orphan­age in March and peo­ple slowly started to adopt the chil­dren. Today, EAC has had over 7,800 adop­tions in 12 coun­tries. I am adopted from Rus­sia and Margaret’s story has touched my heart about how much effort she has put into EAC. She has a great open mind to help kids get adopted. This is why she is my hero.”

Kat said Cole also started Maria’s House in St. Peters­burg, a place for girls age 16 and older who are too old for an orphan­age. Maria’s House makes cer­tain girls have the edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties they need to go on to col­lege and have pro­duc­tive lives.

When the flyer came out for the stu­dent essay con­test to select and write about heroes, Kat said she thought it was an inter­est­ing topic.

“It was 10 o’clock at night, and I just sat down and wrote it,” Kat said. “My mother helped me with some minor revi­sions, and I turned it in.”

Kat, who enjoys writ­ing, said it’s the sec­ond time she has won a writ­ing contest.

She’s also a busy young lady. Kat plays flute in the Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School Band, is a mem­ber of the Inter­me­di­ate School Run­ning Club, and was just elected last week to serve on the Inter­me­di­ate School Stu­dent Council.

Out­side of school Kat is involved in com­pet­i­tive cheer­lead­ing at North­star Stu­dio, plays on a Big Wal­nut Youth Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion recre­ation bas­ket­ball team, and is involved in club vol­ley­ball at Match­point (she says vol­ley­ball is her favorite).

Kat’s home­room teacher Katie Graven, who also teaches Kat’s Lan­guage Arts and Social Stud­ies classes, said the Amer­i­can Red Cross Hero’s Stu­dent Essay win a well-deserved honor.

“Kat is a self-motivated and hard-working stu­dent,” Graven said. “She thinks deeply about things and is very reflec­tive about life. It was neat for her to take advan­tage of this oppor­tu­nity for the essay contest.”

Graven said Kat gets mostly A’s on her report cards, only one B last term; that she’s some­one all of her teach­ers would describe as a good student.

“Kat is an all-around good kid who makes good choices,” Graven added. “She’s espe­cially thought­ful and unselfish.”

One final note — Kat said she was so young when she was brought to the United States that she doesn’t remem­ber much; but she likes it here because she has a busy sched­ule and has lots of nice friends.

Kat’s brother Andre, a Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School stu­dent, was also adopted from St. Peters­burg through EAC.

Posted by Gary Henery on Dec 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.