Help us Build the New School

ትምህርት ቤታችንን እንድንገነባ እርዳን
Help us Build our School

 

We’re raising half a million dollars so that Fresh and Green Academy will have a place of its own. This is a cooperative effort between the American and Canadian Friends of Fresh & Green. Will you pitch in? All we need now is your pledge, with the funds due in June.

The school will be built on land given to the school director of 23 years, Muday Mitiku, and will allow her to redirect rental costs to programs for students and our Mothers Coop, which empowers women by teaching and employing them in local trades. 

If you pledge to donate $20,000 ($25K Cdn), we will call you a Founder and name one of the educational spaces after you. Pledge $7,500 ($10K Cdn) and you, as a Builder, get your name on the entrance hall plaque. But any amount pledged is a help. We encourage you to get your friends and family together to raise the target amounts.

Check out our plans below and pledge today. Thank you.

Knowledge by Design

Our school design was dictated by the Ministry of Education and incorporates all of the space, technology and playground facilities you would want a child of your own to have. Have a look through our plans and picture yourself in the schoolyard – one day you may actually be there on a trip with our volunteers! (Click button below – building plans are large and may take time to load. Adobe Acrobat required, Download Acrobat Reader to download)

Canadian Not-for-Profit Granted Charitable Status

Canadian Not-for-Profit Granted Charitable Status

We have great news from Canada as Canadian Friends of Fresh and Green Academy has been granted charitable status. This expands our reach to another 35 million potential supporters and rewards our long-time donors there with a tax credit going forward.

As in the U.S., all of our 5 board members are volunteers and they are supported by even more energetic helpers to promote Muday’s school and Mothers Coop, and many events and fundraisers are in store.

So congratulations to (l-r) Blaine, Rahel, Neil, Tsedey, Paul and Company for their determination and effort to feed and educate kids in Ethiopia whom otherwise might be trapped in the cycle of poverty. You can check out their website here.

November Visit Brings New Volunteers!

November Visit Brings New Volunteers!

On our third visit to the school this year we had the pleasure of introducing Mr. Christopher Loreck of #Salesforce in San Francisco to our founder Muday and the wonderful community of students, moms and volunteers. This generous new participant, whom we met at #Dreamforce2018 was keen to explore the warm Ethiopian culture and history and made an instant connection with our kids and the people who make Fresh and Green Academy run.

Over the course of a week, Christopher sponsored a student with HIV, also sponsored the single mother Zebib who was our guide in her university pursuits, and came up with an array of ideas to solve our ongoing challenges. And hey, the humble operators who manage the all-powerful Salesforce customer resource management platform at Friends were thrilled to have a Solutions Engineer at their side to pepper with technical questions all…week…long!

We also ran across Cathie Miller, a Canadian nurse practitioner with an adventurous spirit who joined us to get an in-depth look at the school, do some triage (a daily need with 250 boisterous youngsters), and left with stories and scarves to spread to her co-workers and friends. Cathie added a lot of energy to our last day to cap off a great trip, so thanks, guys, for coming to visit!

We encourage anybody who thinks they might like to explore our world, including scaling a 3,000 foot volcano to see the monastery and caldera lake at the top (and getting stuck 4 times on Mount Zuqualla!) to contact us about visiting Fresh and Green Academy. We guarantee it will change your outlook and display the hope and beauty of our planet.

Special Needs, Special Opportunity

Special Needs, Special Opportunity

We have some students whose stories Muday could not overlook when they approached the school. Muday created Fresh and Green Academy to help children who need it the most, and that is why these kids were taken into the school, even though they need more resources than normal to succeed. While many of our children suffered in their early years from malnutrition, and the debilities that come with that, several of them faced even more frightening challenges: hydrocephalus, blindness, paraplegia and emotional scars.

A boy named Yesuna was brought to the school because his mother wanted to abandon him. He had been neglected since birth after his mother could not afford to feed him. He was left in their hovel while his mother waited for him to die, and malnutrition made him blind, deaf and unresponsive. He has a severe mental disability. He is too weak to walk or even sit up. But Muday would not abandon him.

Through daily care for over 2 years, Yesuna is coming back. Turns out he is not deaf after all, and responds to music and clapping. His caregivers have applied physiotherapy methods and he now has the strength to sit up on his own. He can now communicate his most basic needs, but cannot speak.

Yesuna has almost constant attention, from his caregivers to be sure, but from his schoolmates as well! A television is kept in his room and his friends come to be with him and watch TV. And this is one of the real benefits of having these students in the community: these kids learn to build people with special needs into their own lives! Everybody lends a hand when needed.

We need your help! Can you help sponsor one of our special needs kids through the Friendship Club program? We have created a special category for this initiative and you will be sure to get progress reports from your Friend along the way.

Become a Friendship Club member!

Return to #StillWithThem #GivingTuesday

#WalkForThem Spring Fashion Show Fundraiser

Friends came together for our stunning and exciting #WalkForThem Fashion Show in New York City on May 20th. Our volunteer models, mothers and daughters all, raised nearly $7,000 for Fresh and Green Academy! A great thank-you also for the talented volunteers who put the show together, and of course all of our donors and sponsors who have given us new resources to keep our 235 students in school!

Models proudly showed fashions made by our Mothers Cooperative at the school. Our guests were entertained by Mike DiRubbo’s Jazz Trio who immediately left for a tour of Czech Republic. Patrons were treated to a traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony hosted by Executive Director Sosina Mulugeta Gebreyesus.

If you are interested in purchasing fashions from the Mothers Cooperative, please visit our Etsy store by clicking here.

There is still time to donate to the event. Thanks for supporting #WalkForThem!

Fresh and Green Goes to High School

Fresh and Green Goes to High School

We are so proud of our nine Grade 8 graduates for passing their high school entrance exams! Most were in kindergarten when Friends of Fresh and Green got involved with the school 8 years ago, and we began to grow the school by a grade each year.

Running a high school curriculum is not on the books for Fresh and Green Academy right now as we try to secure the rights to the land that the school is on. But we will continue to support our graduates as they start up a new path on their journey to higher education and eventually a profession. They are such important members of our community and set a great example for the younger kids!

Our graduates will still start and end their day at the Academy with a meal, with high school classes down the road in between. But we have to pay for their uniforms and books as well as providing medical care if needed. We estimate that it will cost $500 up front for supplies and then $75 a month for each student over the course of the year.

We need your help! Can you help sponsor one of our high school kids through the Friendship Club program? We have created a special category for this initiative and you will be sure to get progress reports from your Friend along the way. If you can help us with the upfront costs as well, then great! Please make a separate donation and you’ll get a tax receipt for that as well.

Become a Friendship Club member!