KOINS FOR KENYA

Why am I so excited? Well, in all my travels around the world the past 45 year I never got to go to Kenya on a Safari, and now one of my daughters and a grandson are going to go to Kenya for a couple of weeks on a work mission, my grandson who will be 15 (almost) by then will be building school desks for an Eagle Project and my daughter will be teaching other things to the women. How did this get started? Well, my daughter, Sherrie, wrote a cute book called "The Power of a Penny". It is a story of the travel of one penny through many situations that covers the 100 years the penny has been around. She pledged to donate part of her returns in a charity, and she choose "Koins for Kenya." This lead to the acquaintance of Bret VanLeeuwen who is the founder of this charity. Bret took some of Sherrie's books with him to Kenya on a trip and the 3rd picture is of Anthony Yama, a Kenyan dignitary, co-coordinator in Africa reading her book! The second picture is Bret and Anrthony with Sherrie at a speaking engagement at the Cottonwood club. To a mother this is very exciting. " Koins For Kenya" works out of the Mnyenzeni Valley with a cluster of five villages. The valley is about 300 miles south of Nairobi near the South Coast. Bret has built schools, dug wells and taught the women to sew. The people do most the work and "Koins for Kenya" buys the materials. This is where the headquarters is and where Sherrie and Brayden will be living for a couple of weeks...........then they get a three day safari. Yes! Am I jealous? Yes. I have been down the east coast of AFRICA to Cape Town from Istanbul and on to Johannesburg enjoying places like Ghana, Lome Togo, Namibia and the Ivory Coast. I got just enough to want more, but at my age I still remember what a long, hard trip that was and don't feel this would be a good decision to go with them. I will make some baby blankets to send with them. They are used to entice the women into the dispensary to have their babies, rather than stay in the villages where many are lost. Can you imagine if you had nothing but a banana leaf to wrap your new born in, how wonderful a soft blanket would be to a new born? It is working and Bret has set about a program to help him get more blankets. Bret and Sherrie share their stories with groups who are looking for a new cause and are great speakers. Last week Bret gave Sherrie a fun bracelet made from a coin from Kenya, two holes drilled with a leather thong Thur it, made a fun conversation piece. I so love people who do nice things for others, sharing their talents and time.