Help us Build the New School

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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.

Make your pledge today!

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)

Browse the Plans
Do You Believe in Miracles?

Do You Believe in Miracles?

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Our school needs to buy the land that it sits on or we’re out. Homeless.

Due to current events in Ethiopia, things were put on hold for a few months. Now that things are better, the owner of the land the school sits on is moving forward with the sale of the land. He has a new buyer lined up if we do not make the purchase in four weeks! We are still $219,000 short.Please help us raise the rest of the amount needed, by making a donation and spreading the word! Tweet, post, intsa. Tell your friends! Together we can keep the kids from having to go back into the streets to beg for food.

Click to Help Us Buy the Land

Fresh and Green Academy has been taking impoverished kids off the street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for 16 years. The school educates and feeds these children at no cost to their poor, mostly single parents. With the help of Friends of Fresh and Green, a New York-based 501 (c)(3) non-profit, the school has managed to grow from a simple Pre-K and Kindergarten to now include Grades 1-8.

Relying completely on donations, the school has faced rising rent costs and the land has recently been sold to a new owner. Fortunately, this generous individual saw the good work that the school was doing in breaking the cycle of poverty, and has offered to sell the land to the school.

So we need you to help with a Miracle: raise $219,000 before May 20th so Fresh and Green Academy can buy the property it sits on. Otherwise, the land will be sold and developed and we will have to find another location that will be even more expensive or charge the kind of rent that will put it out of business and put the kids and their parents back on the street.

Please help us with any amount you can. it is people like yourself who are able to put us over the top with a US tax-deductible donation. Thank you so much!

Click to Help Us Buy the Land

 

The Power of Personality by Neil Jones

The Power of Personality by Neil Jones

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How did I end up in the middle of Africa? This was not even on my radar 3 months ago. Wasn’t Ethiopia the place where they had that terrible famine when I was a kid? Surely it’s better now but why would I want to go there? The answer: personality.

The first personality I encountered was Trish Hack-Rubinstein, at a bus stop in outer San Francisco. The kind of idle conversation where somebody casually mentions that they have a Non-Profit Organization in their pocket (run largely from an iPhone). This person radiates an energy that affects everyone within speaking distance, and suddenly we are learning in leaps and bounds about Ethiopia’s history and the challenges they face.

And then a huge collection of gregarious, generous and kind-hearted personalities at a fund-raising event in New York City, and I’m hooked! I once met Mr. Munroe Ashkenase, who founded Foster Parents Plan (now Plan Canada). His favourite expression was, “I never met a man who didn’t want to help – you just had to make it easy for him.” Well these people were making it easy for me.

Just over a month later, I have navigated the customs and immigration hall of Addis Ababa airport clinging to my only clue: “Someone will be there to pick you up.” That someone was the personality that created this whole enterprise: Muday Mitiku. Constantly in motion, keeping an organization the size of a village in her head (and on her mobile phone), she is a wonder to watch. Her staff and family provide seamless support.

And finally I meet the collective personality whom I knew before only in pictures: the beautiful children who make a stranger feel like he is part of the family. The characters! The laughter! The schoolyard games! If only I spoke their language as well as they speak mine – but they will teach me, throughout the course of a week. Amharica kwanka tamari naw – I am a student of Amharic.

I am the beneficiary of the generosity of all of these personalities, these perfect hosts. That is why I do my small part to help with their challenges.

Join the all new Friendship Club!

Join the all new Friendship Club!

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On #GivingTuesday we launched our new Friendship Club!

Please join us in this amazing gift of nourishment and education!

What is the Friendship Club?

Friendship Club logo

A new twist on our old child sponsorship program! 

This new program gives you the opportunity to help our students and the school in a way that fits your lifestyle.

 

We are offering three new “Friendship” tiers to give you ample opportunity to help the children.

Our current general sponsorship opportunity,

Friend level-$35 a month will feed one child three meals a day for a month.

Our new Friendship Club levels include:

Good Friend level-$50 a month will assist in the purchase of a uniform and school supplies for two students for a year.

Best Friend level-$75 a month helps cover monthly costs for any student who needs medical attention.

Friend for Life level-$100 a month contributes to the cost of one teacher’s monthly salary. The students’ education would not be possible without these hard working men and women!

No matter what level you choose, you will be making a difference. We will pair you with a student and you will receive communication and periodic updates about him or her and the school.

Friendship Club Perks

Join the club today!

Become a Friendship Club member!

 

With Your Help, These Children Can Change the World!

With Your Help, These Children Can Change the World!

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Our Child Sponsorship Program plays a crucial part in the over all funding of the school. Every child receives three nutritious meals a day, one uniform, (hopefully two in the near future) pens, pencils, lesson books, note books, clean water to take home to their families, and periodic medical care, all for free because of your donations. They also learn and play in a safe and loving environment, they do not all have at home.

To provide these things and pay rent, utilities, and teachers salaries now costs close to $12,000 USD a month, with the food costing approximately $7,000. We also feed the mothers from the Cooperative, teachers, staff and volunteers.

With a recommended $35 monthly donation we are able to continue to help the children and their mothers.

Although the money raised helps all the children, we will pair you with one of our 182 students, update you periodically on his or her progress and send letters or cards from your student. We make periodic trips to the school, and are happy to bring any correspondence to your student you would like.

Fresh and Green Academy, only through your generosity, is saving lives and changing the world.

Thank you!

Sponsor a Child Today