RVC resident supports nonprofit in Tanzania

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Rockville Centre resident Katie Remy took a huge risk when she quit her job at an asset management firm in January. But her gamble couldn’t have worked out any better. In February she was in Tanzania helping a rural school.

Remy left her corporate job because she felt as if something was missing in her life. So she joined the nonprofit organization Mama Hope, a sustainable development non-profit, through what it calls a Global Advocate Fellowship. Over the course of nine months, she took part in an entrepreneurship course, raised more than $20,000 for a sustainable project, and gained first-hand management experience.

Remy spent much of her three months in Tanzania, partnering with communities to implement sustainable development programs, with the goal of providing them with the resources they need to sustain themselves. Mama Hope specializes in such projects.

Helping others is something Remy knows well: She spent most of her childhood and adolescence volunteering and raising money for worthy causes. Her mother, Maureen, is one of the organizers of RVC’s Adopt-A-Family program, which distributes donated gifts to families in need each holiday season. “All through growing up, that was at the forefront of what we did during the holidays,” said Katie.

After her experience with Adopt-A-Family, she started a club at South Side High School called Room to Read, which helped raise money to build a school in Nepal. “I guess it’s always been in my blood to give back to the community,” she said.

As a student in college, Remy volunteered to help an elderly woman in a senior living home. “I was her only contact,” she recalled. “I realized through that experience that you can make an impact on other people’s lives by just connecting with people. It’s not just about raising money.”

After college, Remy started on her career at an asset management firm, but something didn’t feel right. “I felt like something was missing after all the volunteer work I did in college,” she said.

That was where Mama Hope came in. “It was billed as a way for young graduates or young professionals to break into the nonprofit and international development field,” she said of the organization,.

But first she had to leave her job, which turned out to be easy. “Everyone was so supportive and really backed me up,” she said of her coworkers. “I was taking a huge leap of faith and trusting that this organization would be everything I was hoping for.”

When she arrived in Tanzania, she worked with the Queen Elizabeth Academy, in Mlali, to implement sustainable projects, such as building storefronts and a fish pond, whose profits would go toward sustaining the school.

Then she moved to the city of Arusha, where she worked on similar projects at the Glorious Pre and Primary School. She helped raise money to build a security wall around the school, which enhanced its growth, safety and sustainability.

Remy documented her progress in photos and sent it to the people back home. “Donors were happy to see where the money was going and the impact they were having,” she said.

A unique part of Mama Hope’s Global Advocate fundraising model is that all of the money raised goes directly to the communities in which it works. After returning from Tanzania, Remy continued working with one of Mama Hope’s partner organizations, Glorious, which was named after the school in Arusha, to help spread the word about the organization.

“It took me a long time to find something like this,” said Remy. “I feel like it impacted my life in a very positive way, and at the same time helped communities in need reach their goals on their own.”

For more about Mama Hope or the Global Advocate Fellowship, go to www.mamahope.org/global-advocates/.