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A community partnership.
Kenya Kids Can is a true partnership with the local community. The feeding program is a tremendous amount of work. But the bulk of that work, in fact nearly all of that work, is being done by the local community.
It’s the local community that builds the kitchen, that hires the cook, that finds the pot, that secures the wood and the water that it takes to cook the meal and provides all of the labor that it takes to make the feeding program happen in their local school.
Kenya Kids Can is simply doing the one thing that the community can’t do. We are providing the food so that by working together with a local community, we are both able to accomplish something that neither one of us could do apart. The food is, however, a gift to the community and when giving a gift, it’s nice to know how that gift is being received.
Your support is appreciated daily.
Let me tell you what my experience has been. I am out in the schools once or twice a week. Every single time I am in a school, people are thanking me. The children thank me. The teachers thank me. The head teacher thanks me. If there are parents in the school, they thank me. If the chairman of the PTA, Parent Teacher Association, is there, the chairman thanks me.
And every time they thank me, I have to remind them it is not me. They somehow think that I play a large role in the nearly 3 million meals that we served to Kenyan children last year. And, so, I have to remind them it is not me. There are hundreds of people from around the world that know about them, that love them, that care for them, that appreciate how hard they are working to serve their children and are happy to help make the feeding program work by providing the food.
You are on Kenya Kids Wish List
When we think about gift giving and what’s on our wish list, a primary thing that’s on the Kenya Kids Can wish list is that we want everyone who helped to make both our feeding program and our computer program operate last year to know how much they are appreciated.
I wish that everyone could come to Kenya and spend one day in a school seeing firsthand the lunches that are being served — the computer lessons that are being taught. Seeing firsthand the impact that it’s having on that school and in that community and hear for themselves the thank yous from the people there that appreciate so much how others are helping them to serve their children.
Mark Daubenmier
Director of Kenya Kids Can