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Thank you to everyone who donated online and offline to this fundraiser! The goal has been achieved.
As many of you know, I lost my best friend Mary at the ripe age of 23. One of her biggest dreams before she passed away was to help build a school in her mother's hometown of Rwanda.
Mary passed away before she could make that dream come true. In 2013 Mary's parents and family began working on a project to build a classroom in Rwanda for the poor children there who were without parents and had no access to basic education. They built and saw completion of one classroom (see photos) and are hoping to continue building another.
In 2016, with the blessing of her family, I hosted a fundraiser for a second classroom and we were successful in raising money for books, tables and chairs. In 2021 I hosted another fundraiser and we were again blessed with enough donations to fund the third classroom.
Today, to celebrate Mary's life, we are raising more money to keep her lifelong dream alive.
Below you will find the story that inspired Mary's dream.
From Mary's mother,
Agathe Whitehead:
I am from Rwanda,
In 1994 just before the genocide started, we were in Central Africa Republic, Bangui. That year my husband Bob was finishing his tour there for the U.S. government, so we decided to take the kids to visit my family for the first time.
On April 7, 1994 the war started, so we came to the states immediately. My entire family was killed during the genocide. I do not have any left in my home town, but I do have friends there that I met after the war.
In 2003 when Mary came for vacation from Culver, we took both kids to Rwanda; we visited the village, and met with the remaining orphans left parentless from the genocide. Mary told me that her and I should start putting $10 in a piggy bank to bulid a school and she was going to name it St. Mary and I was going to build a church and name St. Agatha.
After she passed away, our dream hadn't come to fruition just yet. In 2010 Bob and I went to Rwanda to see if we could help one of the orphanage children. We found one in Pama. We began bringing Mary's dream to life by buying the first classroom in 2013. The pictures posted were taken while I was in Kigali with the Whitehead family who came to see the project in 2013. We supplied all of the simple neccessities such as books, chairs and supplies for the children.
Former fundraisers :
(2016)
(2021)
Learn more about Mary's fathers' professional and philanthropic services throughout Africa, here :