A Life Changing Moment

I realized that there are quite a few new people getting our updates who may not know anything about me or how the Children's Legacy Partnership Foundation got started.

This week I wanted to give you a little insight into the journey.

A Life-Changing Moment…

It was actually two life-changing moments that led to the founding of the Children’s Legacy Partnership. The first of these moments was when I decided to change careers at the age of 42 and become a teacher.  

Even though I was on a different career path, I knew deep in my soul that teaching was what I was supposed to do.

The next life-changing moment came several years later in 2010 when I traveled to Uganda to volunteer with my friend and colleague, and some high school students.  

At every turn, there were sights that were unbelievable in terms of poverty. Yet equally unbelievable was the spirit, ingenuity, resilience, and kindness of the Ugandan people despite the challenges they face.  

After that first trip many years ago, I knew I would have to return. I continued to volunteer to help vulnerable and orphaned children in Uganda through yearly trips. But I knew I wanted to do more and expand the scope of that work.  

I was also seeing a need within my own middle-grade students, school, and community.  I had several students whose families were struggling with substance addiction and poverty.  These students, and especially the girls, had low confidence and self-esteem and didn’t seem to have a vision for their future.   

In 2016 I held our first Empower Youth Leadership Conference in my classroom for 16 girls on a Saturday and it was a big hit.  It was at this point I registered the foundation as a nonprofit in Vermont and began the process of obtaining our federal determination as a charity. 

The next year I did another conference and more kids wanted to come, including boys.  After paying for everything myself, my colleague and I wrote a grant and were given an Innovation Award by the NoVo and Education First Foundations.  This allowed us to expand and offer the conferences to 10 schools in our area and bring together kids from very diverse backgrounds.  

At the same time I was holding the conferences, I began expanding our work in Uganda.  Along with some friends, we sponsored our first women’s savings and loan group working through our NGO partner Kapida.  This was our core program for many years to help break the cycle of poverty for children by helping single mothers start businesses to support their families.  

Now, seven years later, we have seven groups with over 200 women and several programs working to break the cycle of poverty for children. 

When I started the foundation, it was important to me to continue helping the people I had met in Uganda, but it was also important for me to help my community at home. Since I had been connecting my students to kids in Uganda for several years, I knew the foundation could have a model to support children both in Uganda and the U.S.

While our programs have grown and evolved to be more focused on the causes of poverty, this connection between the two countries and cultures has been a constant and a strength of the foundation.  

Seeing 5th-grade students in the U.S. and Uganda exchange info in live video meets about culture, talk about what they do for fun, recite poetry, and dance is amazing!!  

Over the past seven years, the work has been challenging, and some days heartbreaking. 

I have learned, grown, and gotten better at understanding how to best help others. 

I’m humbled by the generosity of those who donate their hard-earned money to help others they don’t even know. 

I’m humbled by the little boy who shared his small portion of posho with his three friends at lunch. 

I’m inspired by the goodness I see, by the determination of the girls and women who keep working toward a better, more just future!

I feel incredibly fortunate that I get to do this work every day. 

I thank all of you for allowing me to share the journey of our children with you.

With Gratitude,

Mary

P.S.  In some upcoming posts, I’ll give you a deeper dive into our programs.