School fees are the only thing standing between these students and their future.

In 1998, our founder led a group of students on a trip to Western Kenya to stay in the village of Esibila. Their goal was to build the first classrooms for a secondary school that local teachers and community elders had envisioned. Those classrooms got built, launching a school that now serves over 600 local students, and the friendships formed with the village that summer have lasted ever since.

Those relationships led our founder, just out of college, to begin sponsoring one girl through school. Friends and family wanted to join in, and the circle kept growing. Eventually some who wanted to sponsor asked for nonprofit status, and in 2013 WKEO incorporated.

What began with one student and a few family members has grown, with the steady support of friends and family, into hundreds of students sponsored over the years, and more than 40 today. Our students are no longer only at Esibila; they attend schools throughout the surrounding area, from local day schools to boarding schools. Many go on to vocational training or university, often at the community's recommendation, so they can build a future different from the one they were born into and give back to the community that raised them. Many already do: they mentor younger students, and some have come back to sponsor students of their own.

Local leaders make all of this possible. Teachers, elders, members of advisory councils at local schools, and other community servants spread the word about the program. Families with very needy children apply, and sometimes teachers apply on a child's behalf. A council then reviews every application, working to balance boys and girls and to choose the hardest-working students with the greatest need.

The program is more robust today than it has ever been. Our two program leaders in Kenya, Susan and Pharies Emitundo, coordinate semi-annual retreats with speakers and guest mentors, along with monthly online sessions. This keeps students connected, encouraged, and on track toward their goals between retreats, and gives them the kind of peer community and mentoring many have never had elsewhere.

WKEO is run by a small U.S. board and a handful of long-time volunteer leaders in Kenya. It is, and has always been, a small operation, which is exactly why every dollar you give still finds its way to a specific student.

WKEO began by sponsoring girls, and we still make sure at least half of our students are girls, since they are usually the first to be pulled from school after 8th grade when a family can't afford to keep every child enrolled. Over the years, though, the community itself asked us to bring boys into the program too, so today we sponsor both girls and boys. For any of our students, a sponsorship is often the only thing that keeps the door to their future open.