The Jordan Garrick Initiative

It all started at a wedding about 3 weeks ago. Chrystal, my college roommate, was a bridesmaid in her sister's wedding here in Charlotte. Mrs. Gloria Garrick and her husband Ron were in attendance. They're Chrystal's godparents. Conveniently, we were seated at the same reception table as the Garricks. Awaiting the appearance of the newlyweds, we all began chatting and catching up.

We began getting into the details of our upcoming trip to Kenya. Each program participant is allowed to bring down 50lbs. of donations as we'll be visiting the babies in the homes. We weren't sure at that point how we were going to go about collecting clothes, toys, diapers, wipes, etc. for these babies. Mrs. Garrick said that her daughter Jordan might be interested in helping us get some of these things donated. She said she would have Jordan call me the following night and we would outline a plan.

Jordan called the next evening and I gave her a little background on Amani, the trip, and what we were aiming to collect. We agreed to meet in the next couple of days to iron everything out. After a productive meeting, Jordan sent out the following e-mail to a number of potential donors:

Hello,

My name is Jordan, and my mother, Gloria Garrick is helping me with a fund-raiser for the Amani Children's Foundation. Here is some additional information I would like to share, to gain your support in this effort!

I am working with Kristin, the daughter of Diane Hill, who is a rising senior and Robertson Scholar at UNC Chapel Hill to collect baby clothes for the Amani Children's Foundation. The Foundation is sponsoring several UNC Chapel Hill students on an upcoming Family Leadership Trip to Kenya, to visit the homes for abandoned infants and small children. The Foundation is focused on serving children, who have been orphaned by AIDS in Africa. Babies arrive and live in six "New Life Homes" across Kenya.

If you are wondering how you can help... We are collecting the following items, and need your support:

• New Baby Clothes (0 - 3 years of age)
• New sturdy Baby Toys (0 - 3 years of age)
• Disposable Diapers
• Baby Wet Wipes
• Baby Plastic Pants
• New / used books
• 2 new / used car seats

If it is easier for you to make a financial donation, please feel free to send money , and let me do the shopping for you!

It is our goal to collect over 100 pounds of baby items for Kristin and Diane's upcoming trip, so we will need to receive your donation by Monday, June 16th. Please respond back to this email, if you are interested in participating, and my Mom, Gloria will coordinate a pick-up time.

Here are some additional website:
Amani Children's Foundation: http://www.amanichildren.org
Kristin Hill Scholar profile: http://robertsonscholars.org/index.php?type=dynamic&source=scholarsProfilesDetail&at=student&id=383
Robertson Scholars Program: http://robertsonscholars.org/

Thanks in advance for your support!

P.S. I have attached some pictures of the children!

From there, the donations poured in! Let me tell y'all, that Girl Scout can move! She asked me for a flyer that she could take to dance, church, etc. I commissioned a good friend to design this:

With that, she was off again! After a good week and a half, Mrs. Garrick and Jordan came over to deliver the donations they'd collected from people. My mother and I were happily stunned! There was 145lbs. of donations in the form of books, clothes, diapers, and baby wipes!

Thank you so much Garrick family for organizing and collecting all of these items for the babies. Thanks to all of you who contributed, you are truly changing lives one baby at a time. Your help is invaluable to us!

Please send additional donations to this address:

The Amani Children's Foundation
c/o The Jordan Garrick Initiative
3288 Robinhood Rd. #107
Winston-Salem, NC 27106

The Amani Family Leadership Trip - June 2008

Each year, the Amani Children's Foundation does some sort of trip to Kenya during the summer. The themes vary. Some years the focus is on students, sometimes adults, sometimes doctors, sometimes family. This year, it's about family.

Over 13 million children in Africa have lost one or both parents to the HIV epidemic. That number is expected to double within the next decade. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is producing orphans so quickly that family structures can no longer cope. They are being found in garbage dumps, on hospital steps, and at bus stops across the continent.

Our 14-day visit/seminar/service tirip will examine the issues of AIDS in AFrica and the effects of this pandemic on infants and children. The trip is intended to begin the long-term process of bringing together the best imagination and resources of America and the best leadership in Africa. Together with Kenyan partners, we will brainstorm, converse, and draw on our professional skills and personal experience to further the work being done on behalf of infants and children whoe have been orphaned by AIDS.

This trip was designed around 6 core objectives:

1. To develop a core of American leaders able to speak from first-hand experience about the crisis of AIDS in Africa in order to make sustainable advances in caring for orphaned infants and children

2. To work with the staff of New Life Homes in caring for abandoned children

3. To meet with other young people and leaders in Kenya involved in the work of caring for orphaned children and protecting their rights

4. To study best practice approaches to the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time

5. To bring the best and brightest minds of the next generation both from the US and from Kenya to develop long-term relationships and big picture thinking about the future of the children of Africa and the ways every discipline and segment of the US and Kenya can affect that future

6. To deepen intergenerational relationships, both here and in Africa

Trip dates: June 20 - July 3

The Amani Children's Foundation

When I entered college in 2005, I entered as a member of the Robertson Scholars Program. Each year the program welcomes approximately 30 students (half at UNC, half at Duke) for an extraordinary expense-free four year collegiate journey. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is my home school along with about 14 others in the Class of 2009. One of those classmates goes by the name Rob Stephens. Rob is from Winston-Salem, NC and is an absolutely incredible individual. I could write an entire blog on our friendship, but I won't!

Upon entering the program, Rob and I became fast friends. We spent our first summer living and working together in the Mississippi Delta interning at the Delta Center for Culture and Learning. I've told many that that was the best summer of my life, and that still holds true. We learned a lot and endured a lot while we were there in the Delta and it proved to be an unforgettable experience.

In our sophomore year Rob began to tell me more and more about a foundation his parents had founded. It was called the Amani Children's Foundation. He had recounted his time spent in Africa and the adoption of his Kenyan brother (Joe) and sister (Bui) when we were freshmen, but he'd never gotten into the details. Since he gave them to me, I'll give them to you!

The Amani Children's Foundation was first created to raise awareness about the growing number of orphaned children in Sub-Saharan Africa and to build partnerships with groups and individuals in the United States to work towards decreasing the impact of this issue. This organization is primarily focused on serving children who have been orphaned by AIDS by providing various types of support for them.

Currently, the foundation is supporting New Life Homes in Kenya. The group has been working since 1994 and has rescued over 800 infants with most of them being adopted. They are a best practice example of how to raise infants in a loving environment. They are a highly respected organization in Kenya.

There are 6 New Life Homes in Kenya and Amani supports the operation of the homes in Nakuru, Kisumu, and Mombasa as well as assisting the other homes. The Kenyan government would like to see a home in each of the 8 Kenya provinces, and there is a great need for that. Rob tells me that some of these babies are found lying abandoned on the side of the street crying because their families just can't care for them. That was all I needed to hear, I knew I wanted to get involved!

That spring, Rob approached me wondering what kind of fundraiser we could have for the Amani Children's Foundation. We decided on a benefit concert. We wanted a venue that would a attract people so we reached for the stars and started with one of the most famous live music venues in the world, the Cat's Cradle down in Carrboro, NC. Miraculously we secured the venue! Then it was on to recruiting acts. While recruiting, we noticed that all the artist fell into one genre of music. Acknowledging that, we called the event "The Amani Children's Foundation presents: Hip Hop Helps."


With help from other student organizations and local sponsors, the concert was a great success. We were able to collect over $2000 in donations. It takes approximately $1000 to care for a Kenyan orphan in a New Life Home for their first year of life. We were pretty proud of ourselves. Keeping up with the tradition, we had two Amani benefit concerts this year.

Each time we've had an event to benefit the foundation, my mother has sent a donation. This got her signed up for the Amani Children's Foundation newsletters and she began to learn more and more about the foundation. In a way, we've both been connected to the program for a couple years. So when this opportunity rolled around, we both jumped on it!

Please read more on the Amani Children's Foundation on their website and find out how to get involved!

Less than a week!

Greetings and welcome to our blog! As many of you reading know, my mother and I will be taking a trip down to Kenya with the Amani Children's Foundation at the end of this week. We hope to use this blog as a way to keep in touch with y'all while we're away. Before we leave, I'll clue you in on a bit of what's been going on in preparation for this trip and our history with Amani.