Calhoun students sponsor Kenyan student's college education

Students from Calhoun High School’s Senior Experience class used the funds that they recently raised through their annual fashion show to give a student from Kenya a real “senior experience.”

The March fundraiser’s goal was to help someone less fortunate than most Calhoun students to pay for college. Maureen Wairimu, a Kenyan, recently graduated from the Bahari Secondary Boarding School for Girls in Kilifi County. There, her tuition was funded by Reason2Smile, a grassroots nonprofit group that provides educational opportunities for Kenyan students. Calhoun’s Senior Experience class raised $10,000 to help Reason2Smile pay for Wairimu’s college tuition.

Wairimu has had her education sponsored by Reason2Smile since she began attending its school, the Jambo Jipya Academy, in the second grade. Reason2Smile’s first school was founded in 2004 and began as a mud hut with fewer than 12 students. At the time, its goal was to provide students with two solid meals a day and a place to learn. It has since expanded into the Jambo Jipya Academy and Children’s Home, raising money to educate children and send them to trade or secondary schools.

Calhoun’s Senior Experience class learned of the organization through Donna Rosenblum, the executive director of Reason2Smile and mother of Calhoun senior Ryan Rosenblum. Every year the Senior Experience class stages a fashion show to raise money for a charity of its choosing. Representatives of non-profit organizations visit the class, presenting their goals and recent activities. The class then votes on the charity of its choice.

When Rosenblum visited this year with Reason2Smile, the charity won 70 percent of the vote.

According to Rosenblum, Wairimu was at the top of her class at the Jambo Jipya Academy and has long stood out as an exemplary student, which is why the Calhoun senior class chose to direct its funds toward her college tuition.

On April 7, Rosenblum, her son and Calhoun senior Olivia DelGandio traveled to Mtwapa, Kenya, for a two-week trip to see how Reason2Smile operates. They stayed at the Jambo Jipya Children’s Home, where Ryan and DelGandia saw firsthand Wairimu’s reaction when they told her that she would be the beneficiary of Calhoun’s fundraising. “ I wish I had video,” Ryan said. “She started crying. She thought we were pranking her.”

“I am the only one in my family who is currently in school,” Wairimu said. She plans to pursue economics, and she said she hopes to promote a more diverse workforce in Kenya and Africa as a whole. Wairimu said she worries that most Africans are leaving their blue-collar jobs to pursue white-collar careers, leading to an imbalance in the job market. “I would wish to change Africans’ misconceptions that the white-collar jobs are the best,” Wairimu said.

Rosenblum became involved with Reason2Smile in 2011 and started visiting Jambo Jipya with her son in 2013. In January 2016, she became the organization’s full-time executive director. To her, Reason2Smile stands out over other nonprofit organizations because it has remained close to the people that it serves. When she, Ryan and DelGandio visited Kenya, “We stayed in the orphanage,” she said. “We ate the same food. We’re their American family.”

Ryan Rosenblum said the trip made him “grateful for everything I have and what my mom does.”

DelGandio, who plans to pursue international relations at New College of Florida, said the trip encouraged her to stay active in the field of social justice and human rights. “This is something that has shaped my thoughts for my future,” she said.

Wairimu is now in Mombasa, Kenya, taking computer classes. She is applying to several Kenyan universities.