Jack’s Orphanage: Local man brings hope, education to Kenyan children
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
RONAN — Community member Jack Stivers will soon board an airplane for a 30-hour flight to his orphanage in Matuu, Kenya. He’ll be taking good wishes and bags of clothing and school supplies from the Mission Valley with him on his June 10 trip.
Salish Kootenai College elementary education major Maddie Hewston will accompany him.
“It’s always been kind of a good dream to go to Africa,” Hewston said.
She heard that Stivers was returning to Kenya and asked if she could tag along, meet the children and see Africa.
Stivers began researching a visit to Africa in 2012 and learned that youth needs, including orphanages, were abundant.
He visited an established orphanage in Nairobi and met social worker Meshack Itumo. Itumo, an orphan himself, had found a sponsor, received an education and was now working on behalf of other children.
Itumo asked Stivers about opening an orphanage near Matuu. Stivers agreed to the plan and now owns five acres in Kenya. To make the orphanage sustainable, the children and adults planted papaya, mango, banana and avocado trees as well as pigeon peas. They also have a garden for vegetables, such as corn, peas, onions, potatoes and tomatoes. Currently one building has been completed, constructed of hand-made mud bricks.
To educate the children, Stivers and Itumo found a teacher, a Kenyan woman who graduated from Nairobi University, to serve as the headmistress of the orphanage and teacher.
“What I forsee in the future is an established orphanage: two buildings with 100 beds each, sustainable on its own from the farmland and income from (a) chicken operation,” Stivers said.
But the children need many things.
To take as many useful items as possible as well as their own clothing, Stivers and Hewston are each allowed one bag, which can weigh 100 pounds, and one carry-on for their June flight.
Local resident Larry Robertson is coordinating a community drive to fill and send additional bags with Stivers and Hewston.
Both are allowed 10 extra bags each, for a total of 20 bags. Each bag costs $70 to ship. The bags can weigh 50 pounds and must measure a total of 62 inches for length plus width plus height. It’s more economical and safer to send items this way since the mail is unreliable, Robertson said. He’s asking people to help out by donating items to fill the bags, giving a suitcase or providing the “filling” for a bag.
On Stivers’ wish list are school supplies, including paper, pencils and crayons. The children are chronically short of clothing so new or gently used clothes for children ages 5 to 16 would be appreciated.
The children will wear one shoe of one color and one of another, Stivers said, and they don’t care if their clothes are boy’s clothes or girl’s clothes. T-shirts, especially those with writing of some sort, and shorts are favorites, as well as sweaters. Clothes should be clean, with no holes, stains, broken zippers or missing buttons. Shoes have to be new.
Hygiene items, particularly soap, toothbrushes and toothpastes and washcloths, are also needed. Stivers also would like bottles of multivitamins and calcium.
Donations of clothing, school supplies, hygiene items, suitcases or cash to pay the freight can be dropped off at the Lake County Extension Office, 330 Third Ave. NW, Ronan, during business hours, until June 6 so there’s time to pack.
St. Luke Community Hospital has volunteered to fill two bags, and Valley Bank and Walmart have also committed to a bag each.
For more information, contact Larry Robertson at 253-9641.
