As some of you may know, I am taking a volunteer trip to Kenya this coming July.

During this trip, I will be working with Maasai school children who live on a reservation in Southern Kenya.

Although I’m not a Rotary club member, I’ll be traveling with a group of Rotarians, helping advance the work they’ve been doing for a decade and counting. For ten years, the Maywood Rotary Kenya Project has donated funds to support the school and its students. To date, they have built one school from scratch including eleven classrooms and running fresh water pipes to the school. They have also provided badly needed medical supplies, a fully stocked library, faculty housing, and girls’ and boys dorms that enable students to avoid walking up to 8 miles to school each way daily.

This part of the world is much poorer than the one I live in. People there live without consistent access to clean water, in a climate prone to droughts and with limited to no medical care. All too often, children in Kenya die of preventable illnesses related to dehydration and malnutrition.

The school I am volunteering with has one big problem that I hope to help fix. At Nkenijii Primary School a significant number of students’ parents send them to school just because it is a way to ensure that their children have one meal a day, if there is no food at home. Although the school does have some donated food, there is no sheltered kitchen for them to cook for students each day. The school presently has an open campsite fire and two large cooking bowls. If it rains, there is no lunch that day. If the unprotected food eaten by animals, there is no lunch that day.

Our goal is to raise funds to build a simple kitchen with a roof and secure storage for donated food. My individual goal is to raise $2,000. If you choose to make a donation, please know that the amount is fully tax-deductible. And no donation is too small – seriously.

Here’s the chance for you to help if you’re so inclined. You may mail a check payable to Maywood Rotary Club Foundation to:

Maywood Rotary Kenya Project

453 Golf Avenue

Maywood, NJ 07607

Please note with your check: Volunteer Jennifer K.

If you prefer to donate online, please email 1chicklette [at] gmail.com for more information. This email address is linked to my PayPal account so donations may be made that way if preferred.

After I return on July 21, I’ll post photos so you can see the people we worked with and hopefully helped.

Goal reached and exceeded! Thanks for your support.