2022 in Review
We’re excited to share some of our KKC highlights from 2022 and peek into the year ahead.
Serving a record 3.8 million meals
This year our schools needed more meals than ever as Kenya added an extra term to help students catch up after Covid closures.
However, the soaring price of food in Kenya made this situation even more challenging. This graph illustrates how the price of corn and beans has risen from the start of 2020 to this fall. The green line shows food prices in Kenya shillings and the blue line shows prices in USD. With the US Fed raising interest rates in the States, leading to a stronger dollar around the world, donations made in US dollars currently have more purchasing power in Kenya. This is mitigating our program’s rising food costs.
Thank you for getting behind our “can” drive
Many of you watched the video “Another Face of Hunger,” where we shared about a home visit, refrigerators, and the challenge of providing food for a fourth school term. Your response was simply amazing. Over the next two months you generously donated the $80,000 needed for the additional term! Thank you for helping us continue to feed our students, especially during a dry part of the year in Kenya.
Adding Soitamurt Primary School to our school lunch program
Earlier this year we heard that Soitamurt, a small school at the edge of the area where we work, needed food. At the time we were hesitant to add schools to our lunch program due to rising food costs and the additional school term.
Soitamurt’s head teacher was working so hard to try to feed her students. At lunchtime, she would drive her personal car over rough roads to collect any food left over from the schools in our program to bring back for her students.
When I shared this story with a friend, that friend gathered her extended family members to sponsor this school so we could immediately add Soitamurt to our lunch program. The school is so very thankful to have food for their students.
Updating computers
In 2022 we obtained nearly 100 used computers from Rift Valley Academy (RVA). RVA often sells used computers to us when they are updating the computers for their own students. This purchase enabled us to replace older devices, like the ones shown above, residing in many of our computer labs.
Adding Sision Primary School to our lunch program in January!
For those of you who listened to the audio story “Heat comes from the stomach,” you know our hearts are with the children at Sision and we are eager to add them to our school lunch program. Now that we have made it through 2022, we believe we can add Sision Primary this January! We are excited to partner with the Sision community to help their children receive a hot lunch each school day.
Peeking ahead: Fundraising for a pickup truck
As we’ve shuffled food between schools or delivered the last few bags when our larger trucks can’t get through, we’ve realized our need for a pickup truck. Here’s a sneak peak of the video we have put together from clips of some challenging deliveries.
If you would like to contribute towards this project, please include a note with your online or check donation indicating that the funds are for the “KKC pickup truck.”
Peeking ahead: Expanding our computer program
The thing we love just as much as providing a hot lunch to students is providing computer lessons. To truly enable our students to lead in the future, they need to have hands-on computer skills. In 2023, we hope to re-open Kiambogo Primary’s computer center (pictured above) that has been closed for over a decade. Bringing this computer center back online would be a dream fulfilled for this school. Please watch for more information coming soon.
Thank you for being a part of KKC
We can’t thank you enough for partnering with Kenya Kids Can and with the local communities we serve. Our vision is to feed and teach the world changers of tomorrow, and we know that we can’t begin to invest in these future leaders without your support. Thank you for helping to make our dreams — and more importantly, the dreams of many Kenyan students — come true.
Looking forward to serving together in 2023,
Mark Daubenmier
Director of Kenya Kids Can