Archives for December 2020

In November, case managers completed another round of assessment of families to find out the status of the household’s health, finances, and students’ schooling. The students are very much looking forward to going back to school in January. Kenya, and Africa as a whole, seems to be managing this pandemic much better than the US – in fact, the Washington Post released an article about it last week. Most of our students are either receiving assignments from their schools or are completing supplemental assignments given to them by their case managers. Many of the students have also started completing book reports – which you can find in your sponsor portal in the ‘Handwritten Letters & Essays’ section. 

One of the biggest highlights of this month’s round of calls is that the number of families who are receiving zero income is down significantly. This means that most of the families have found ways to make money, even given their incredible challenges. As of November, only 11% of families didn’t have anyone working – compared to the first round of calls in June when 29% of families reported that no one in their family was able to find work. All of the families have expressed deep gratitude for the food support they have received this year. It has lifted a tremendous burden while the students have all been home from school. 

This week we will be publishing the individual results to the sponsor portal. Keep an eye out for them so you can read about how your student and their family are doing, and be sure to write a note or record a video message for your student to encourage them as they head back to school in a few weeks. 

One of our biggest successes this year was the Food from Friends campaign. In March, we explained to our supporters that due to the students staying home from school (where they normally receive two meals a day), and the lack of options for income for their families, we needed to raise the money to be able to feed every single family (and some alumni) in our program. You stepped up in an incredible way, and we are so thrilled to say that we accomplished our goal. We hoped to raise $80,000 to feed 350 families from April through December. With your help, we were able to raise $88,000 and feed 373 children and their families – a total of about 5,000 food packets. 

So many of you donated to this cause. From $20 to our $10,000 match, some of you even chose to donate on a recurring basis each month. Thank you, thank you, thank you! If you are a sponsor and you have read your student’s COVID assessment report on the sponsor portal, many of the families answer the “anything else we should know?” question by thanking the case managers for the food support. For most of them, it is the only way they have been able to survive the pandemic and the resulting lack of income. 

We are so happy that the students are able to return to school in January, and that those schools will once again be able to provide them with the two meals a day that they need to thrive and learn. We have built a robust ‘emergency food fund’ into our 2021 budget so that we can continue to support families who need it. But, the families are reporting that they are back to work, and with students going back to school, we can turn our attention to how we will pay for an extra school term for every student in 2021 and 2022.