Friday, October 14, 2011

Kenya and Humble Hearts

It's been WAY TOO LONG since anyone at Angel Covers has posted a blog. Fortunately, what that means is that we've been crazy busy with so many wonderful things going on. We were thrilled to find out that we made it to the top 10 of the Gildan competition, The Mama's Wish girls have started back to school (we have 10 high school girls who need sponsors if you're interested), a new website is being built, we have a new Nutrition Director, and our Executive Director (that's me) and Humble Hearts Sponsorship coordinator (Ida) are in Kenya. While that sounds like a lot, I know I've missed listing many things.

Having arrived in Kenya the night of October 22, we have been extremely busy getting reacquainted with everyone at the school. We are starting to cross things off our to-do list, and Ida is quickly learning how the school runs on a daily basis. Yesterday we spent time buying more than $1,000 worth of text books and Bibles to support the curriculum. We were thrilled to learn that currently, every primary student has a set of textbooks all his/her own and the secondary students have one set for every 2 students. These statistics are a rarity for Kenya, where frequently there are only enough books for every 4 or 5 students to have a set. We've put Jacob (my 13 yr. old son who also came) to work making sure all of the new books have the Humble Hearts' stamp and a book number in case they are lost.

We learned yesterday that there is a severe bed shortage. Many of the older primary and secondary students are sharing a bed, as are quite a few of the boys. Unfortunately, we also learned that the price of new, steel, beds like we had made last year has drastically gone up. Three-teerd bunk beds like those purchase last year have gone up from approximately $150 to $250 as the cost of steel has sky rocketed. We will be exploring options this weekend and hope to at least help this problem. I know I wouldn't want my children sleeping on the cold concrete with a very thin mattress as many of these kids are doing.

Much of today (Friday) was spent with approximately 15 students creating beautiful art work for the upcoming holiday cards. They have created amazing pictures of birds, animals, flowers, and holiday scenes. Soon you will find these pictures on our website so stay tuned!

We have a very busy week ahead of us, so stay tuned. I will do my best to post an update every day.

Kari Fillmore
Executive Director





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