Can you feel spring yet? I get terrible ‘spring fever” every year, and this pandemic year I seem to have more than usual.

This means I am pouring over garden catalogs and websites. I’ve even been to a few local garden centers just to get that therapeutic shock of color and be surrounded by green growing things. I’m planning what flowers, veggies, perennials, and even a new tree to put in the ground this year. WHY? Because I long to see life and growth take place around me. It feeds my soul. It is an expression of hope and looking forward.

Investing in people does the same thing. Planting education, health, opportunity and dignity is not just an idea. It is real. It bears fruit. They have faces and names and stories. Because of YOU. Because you give financially, you pray, you volunteer, you encourage. Thank you! Let’s take a look at some fruit and also at what this year’s KFNL garden may grow.

Since it began in 2016, KFNL has sent over $240,000 to Uganda. That is staggering to me and very much because of you. Over 4000 individual students have directly been part of our Circle of Health & Hygiene work, plus all the teachers/staff at our schools.

In 2020, because of your generosity KFNL was able to send over $78,000 to our partner schools. During the pandemic this provided desperately needed soap, handwash stations at home, knickers and MakaPads, for over 2600 students plus staff at 6 schools in western Uganda. Even in lockdown, teachers were able to make home visits because of these items, keeping up relationships with kids and encouraging them to come back to school. Now as Uganda slowly returns to schooling (one grade at time!) the fruit is showing up in very encouraging numbers. With Very Smiling Faces. Thank you for standing with these vulnerable children in the midst of Covid. For some it has made all the difference.

2020 Finances at a Glance
Money sent to KFNL schools in Uganda was $78,206.These funds came from donations to KFNL of $58,514, and $10,610 in funds raised by Bethany Centre Alliance in Baton Rouge, plus net proceeds from the sale of Asante Scents for a Cause.Admin costs were just below 10% of total income.

In Uganda, they say “mpolo mpolo” which means ‘slowly by slowly’. This is how children are educated and prepared to have a bright future. Sometimes we cannot see the progress that is happening with the seeds we have planted. Then up comes the shoot..the flower…and fruit. Mpolo mpolo.

Thank you for being part of a project that is bigger than any of us can see. The roots are growing deep in communities that have had little growth for decades. Look at the flower of these bright faces. You have invested here and it shows! Thank you for your part in Knickers for New Life.

Grateful to work in this beautiful garden alongside you,

Watha Kollmeyer