Planning the Trip

It all started about a year ago when we decided to go back to Kenya, back to the children's home and to Kipepeo, the volunteer organization, that Scott and I visited in May 2010. Our thought was always to bring, along with our better halves, to bring our daughters with us on the trip so they could teach at the school, and play with the children. What an experience it would be for them, and hopefully a grounding life experience that they can take with them forever. After batting around different dates in 2011, we finally decided on the month of November. This is the end of the short rainy season in Kenya, and the children are still in school (there is no school in December for them). As well, Monique and Matias were very interested in going as well, and so we decided that the 8 of us would go as a group in November, 2011.

With the group and a date to go, we started putting the trip in place. We had several meetings over the spring and summer to decide dates, itineraries, when things needed to be booked, and so on. At the end of the summer we contacted the different organizations we will volunteer with, booked the flight tickets, and started fund-raising for the organizations. We collected things to bring with us for the children (pens, pencils, books, toothbrushes and floss, blankets, soccer balls and pumps, and so on) and started planning a large fund-raiser party. The concept is called 'Lunch For Life', whereby people buy a day in the year for $25, and this money buys lunch for 250 children at the Vihiga Children's Home. The money will buy cabbage, beans and rice for the lunch, and while we're there we want to start some sort of renewable food program (perhaps chicken coup, or seeds for planting - we'll see when we get there).

Paul