Together, let's bring a playground to Destiny Garden School

Hi!

I have a goal of raising $5,000 to bring a playground to Destiny Garden School, a primary school pre-k through grade 8 located in Mtongwe, Kenya, an impoverished area on the outskirts of Mombasa. Destiny Garden School (DGS) is a charity school founded in 2009 by Jacob Boaz, and has provided thousands of children with an education over these past 15 years. Also in 2009 Judy Roper and her sister Jacky Price, both from the UK but partially raised in Kenya, founded a charity in the UK called Destiny Children in order to fundraise for DGS, operate the school sponsorship program, and keep the school going and growing.

I've been involved with Destiny Garden School since 2016 when I traveled to Kenya with 2 girl friends, and we spent part of our time there volunteering at DGS. In the 8 years since, I've held many fundraisers, both in-person and virtual, raising funds for projects like purchasing school supplies, building upgrades, clean drinking water, the school lunch program, emergency food parcels, and more. I've also acquired many annual sponsorships for students, which helps to keep the school open and growing, educating these students and providing them with a healthy lunch each school day. Education and access to food are huge players in ending cycles of poverty.

This current fundraiser will provide Destiny Garden School with some playground equipment, primarily for the younger students. There is a big field where students (especially the older ones) play soccer as well as other sports and games. They don't have a playground. This will be a huge asset to DGS to be able to provide equipment for the younger students to burn energy, play, build on skills of team building, and help them increase focus in the classroom. Can you imagine if our students and children here didn't have playgrounds to play on during recess?

I'm going back to Kenya toward the end of September this year with my husband, and the first part of our trip will be in Mtongwe to spend time at Destiny Garden School. If I'm successful in raising the $5,000 by the time we go there, maybe we'll be able to help with preparing the space where the playground will be installed.

A really cool thing about supporting this cause and raising money for DGS is that you will get to see pictures, videos, and hear stories about how the installation goes and how the children react to and adapt to having play equipment to play on. You will directly witness the heartwarming benefit of your donation at work (or should I say, at play?!).

I've also created a video talking about this project, and am including links below to the Destiny Garden School website, the Destiny Children website, and the Destiny Children Charity Facebook page. If you check out the Facebook page you'll be able to see an example of a successful fundraising campaign from some students and parents in Scotland who raised the money needed to restore the sports field that was recently damaged by flooding. You'll also be able to see a recent video of the students celebrating school spirit day and talking about important school attributes like sharing, caring for each other, and making efforts to get along and build community. It's very sweet.

The two best ways to support this fundraiser are here, on this gofundme page, or by going to the Destiny Children website and donating through their donation link. If you would like to donate in that way, please let me know if you have any questions, and mention in the donation that it's for the "Playground Equipment Fundraiser launched by Alana Hanks." It's helpful for my purposes of tracking donations if you let me know that you are donating on the Destiny Children site.

Please share this with anyone who you think might be interested, and let's raise this money together to bring Destiny Garden School a playground!

Destiny Garden School

Destiny Children Charity

Destiny Children Charity Facebook Page

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Alana Hanks