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Orphanage

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Port Jeff business owner Joey Zangrillo during a July trip to a Kenya orphanage he hopes to help expand. Photo from Joey Zangrillo

By Alex Petroski 

Main Street in Port Jefferson and Nairobi County in Kenya are separated by 7,300 miles, but a chance meeting between a local business owner and a Kenyan lawyer has made a world of difference for needy children in the impoverished nation.

In 2016, Annette Kawira, 28, moved with her then-fiancé from Kenya to Port Jeff. One night she and her now-husband, who relocated to begin working at Stony Brook University, found themselves in Port Jeff looking for a place to eat and ended up dining at the Greek restaurant Z Pita. Owner Joey Zangrillo struck up a conversation with Kawira, who had been a practicing lawyer in Kenya. She told him about her home and about a charitable effort in which she had previously been involved. Kawira said she used to donate 10 percent of her monthly salary to a cause being undertaken by a pastor in a suburb of Nairobi, whose mission was to help orphaned and forgotten children living on the streets without proper care.

A well that was established in large part through a fundraiser at Zangrillo’s restaurant. Photo from Joey Zangrillo

According to Kawira, Pastor Hika Kamau and his wife Judy realized after several church services that when tea and bread were shared with members of the congregation, several children would appear to eat and then disappear. Kawira said Kamau was curious about what was going on with the approximately dozen children. So after one service he told the children he would gladly feed them lunch; but in exchange he asked them to introduce him to their parents. It then occurred to him many were orphans, and others had families that were either unable or unwilling to care for their children.

“He just wondered, ‘Where do these kids go during the week?’” Kawira said.

This sparked Kamau’s motivation.

In 2009, the pastor set up what would eventually evolve into the Bethsaida Orphanage, headed by the Bethsaida Community Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping needy children in the area, with the help of the Bethsaida Women’s Empowerment Group. The school, which is also home for many of the children, originated as a small dwelling built out of mud and soil on the grounds of the church for the original group of children the pastor met after services. Through word of mouth, the number of children served by the school has ballooned to more than 100, with 72 kids from 1 year old to 17 years old living permanently on the site, which has grown through the exchange of the pastor’s ancestrally inherited land.

Kawira said she was happy to donate part of her salary to help the cause.

“Every time I would give it to them, I realized what I was giving really wasn’t making a difference, because they would probably just eat, buy a few utilities — that doesn’t change the situation that they were in,” she said while sitting at a table inside Z Pita. “My interest with the kids was to just make sure whatever we do, it’s sustainable. I don’t think you can beg forever … what can we do that will empower these kids to empower themselves?”

When Kawira found herself at Zangrillo’s restaurant last year, they struck up a conversation, and the restaurant owner told her about his own charitable effort on which he had just embarked. Zangrillo founded a company called Race Has No Place, an apparel brand with a mission of breaking down barriers between people of different races. Purchasers of the apparel, upon check out, are instructed to select a charity of their choice toward which to direct 10 percent of their purchase. Zangrillo and Kawira soon realized their missions intersected and decided to team up.

Kawira explained the story behind the pastor’s mission in Kenya, and by July of this year, after a fundraiser at Z Pita, the Port Jeff business owner was on a 25-hour excursion to see the desperate area for himself.

“I’m telling you — what good food can do,” Kawira said, laughing about the lucky circumstances that led to the charitable partnership. “Good food brings people together.”

Port Jeff business owner Joey Zangrillo during a July trip to a Kenya orphanage he hopes to help expand. Photo from Joey Zangrillo

After the first fundraiser and additional money accumulated by a donation container that sits on the front counter at the restaurant year-round, enough money has been raised to begin the construction of a well at the orphanage, which will provide much-needed clean water.

“I’m never going to forget them — I’m going to make this a lifelong mission, as long as I’m alive,” Zangrillo said, reflecting on his eight-day trip to East Africa.

Zangrillo and Kawira have enlisted the help of Maureen Nabwire, a native of Kenya, who serves as a project manager for their efforts and has plans to venture to Port Jeff to establish a game plan for 2018. Plans include figuring out how much money needs to be raised and how it will be done to make the facility everything it needs to be for as many needy Kenyan children as possible.

“Annette and Joey are the kindest and most beautiful souls, and I am so glad I get to work on this initiative with them,” Nabwire said in an email. “They have marshaled the Port Jefferson community into this great cause, and I am super proud of them. They have brought the plight and needs of Bethsaida community children home to a much greater audience and the response has been immensely positive. Annette and Joey represent the society we want to have where your neighbor’s trouble or suffering is your problem. From what they have done, the home down here in Kenya is going to take care of the children without trouble, and guarantee them basic needs and a good education.”

Kawira tried to sum up what the extra attention being paid to a needy group in her home country has meant so far, and what it will mean in the future.

“We’re dealing with kids who don’t have primary resources — water, clothing and shelter,” she said. “It would be hard to explain how dire the need is until you see it.”

To learn more about the cause, visit www.facebook.com/racehasnoplace. For more information about the Bethsaida Community Foundation or to get involved, visit www.besahemi.org.

Artifacts were sold to help raise money for the children in the orphanage at the Hope Children Fund’s 10th anniversary celebration at the Heritage Trust Center in Mount Sinai. Photo by Giselle Barkley

With the help of Hope Children’s Fund, the children of Joseph Kirima Rwito’s orphanage in Meru, Kenya, have never had to wonder where they were getting their next meal or resting their head in the last 10 years.

On Saturday, the Hope Children’s Fund board of directors celebrated the 10th anniversary of its involvement in Rwito’s orphanage at the Heritage Trust Center in Mount Sinai. The orphanage, called The Jerusha Mwiraria Hope Children’s Home, provides food, shelter and education for orphaned Kenyan children and those who are struggling to get by despite living with relatives. For these children, education is key to a brighter future, and Larry Hohler, president of Hope Children’s Fund, and his team, are doing what they can to help.

In addition to celebrating another year, the organization aimed to raise enough money to help these kids go to high school, or other higher educational institutions. The Hope Children’s Fund got involved with the orphanage after Rwito saw countless children on the streets.

In the early 2000s, the AIDS epidemic in Kenya left many children without parents or relatives to care for them. According to Hohler, of Port Jefferson, Rwito took 45 of these children and started a feeding program, but after seeing the children return to their life of poverty, Rwito wanted to do more.

Larry Hohler interacts with children in Meru, Kenya. File photo
Larry Hohler interacts with children in Meru, Kenya. File photo

He asked Hohler to help create the orphanage, and now, upwards of 80 children of various ages reside at, or go to the orphanage. Hohler said the orphanage is so successful that Kenyan authorities and other community members bring kids in need there. While part of the goal is to help these children, Hohler said funding additional children isn’t easy.

“The problem is that they just leave them here, and they don’t help us pay for the upkeep,” Hohler said.

Despite this, the organization and the orphanage received help from Shoreham-Wading River High School students in the past. According to Hohler, they donated countless books to the orphanage for the kids to read and enjoy.

Hope Children’s Fund board of directors member Nancy Rose said the high school students used to visit the orphanage, but stopped. Rose was unsure why they stopped visiting, but said some kids stay in touch with the children they met at the orphanage.

Funding doesn’t just help feed the kids, it helps send them to school. Once the children reach eighth grade, they must take a test to determine if they can move up to high school. Those who fail the test must retake it to advance. While paying to get into high school is another alternative, the majority of these children do not have the finances to afford high school. It’s up to the orphanage and the Hope Children’s Fund to provide that funding once the child passes the test.

According to Rose, who is a mentor to several of the children, the institute hoped to raise $7,000 to $8,000 to help the kids who are preparing to take the exam. Although Rose is unsure if the organization will reach its goal, it still aims to do what it can.

“If they study hard and they pass the test, you just don’t want to tell them ‘I’m sorry, you can’t go, because we can’t come up with the money,’” Rose said.

Rose and her husband, Phil, started helping the children in the orphanage 10 years ago, and found out about the Hope Children’s Fund through their daughter. According to Phil Rose, those who mentor children at the orphanage are responsible for paying one dollar daily, which goes toward the children they mentor. The money raised during Saturday’s event also went toward funding the children’s education.

Those who didn’t want to purchase merchandise at the event could make a donation or use iGift to help the children in Rwito’s orphanage. iGift allows people to purchase goods from participating stores and donate at the same time. A small percentage of the money from that purchase goes toward helping the orphanage.

“I know a lot of people say there’s a lot of children in our country, but this is a good effort and a lot of people spent a lot of time to make it work,” Phil Rose said.

His wife added that, in addition to taking these kids off the street and providing them with a better chance to succeed in their lives, the organization’s goal is for the orphanage to be self-sustainable over time.

“When they do finish with school, they’re expected to come back and give a certain percentage of what they earned to the home itself so that the next kid can go [to school],” Nancy Rose said. “The whole idea is not about a bunch of American do-gooders coming in. It’s about helping them be sustainable and giving them an education, and celebrating their own country and their traditions.”