I clamped my hand against the edge of my seat, shut my eyes, whispered a quick prayer, and waited for impact. 2 seconds later I was suddenly greeted by a series of violent rockings, followed by the screeching of tires and the rush of the Earth at 102 mph, and then- a calm. Overhead a Swiss woman voice spoke, “Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to [city], Kenya”. I had made it. And even though my plane had just landed, my journey had just begun.
To understand the importance of my odyssey, I need to take you back to the summer of 2013. My dream for this particular summer was to do something big, and whether that meant going cliff diving, attaching 1,000 balloons to a chair to achieve flight, or creating my own swimming pool, I was destined to make my hopes a reality. I turned to the drawing board, along with my two good friends, [name] and [name], and we planned away the summer nights figuring out how to go achieve our titanic goals. But as if nature were playing a cruel trick on us, we quickly came to the realization that there would never be enough money or support from our families to turn our sketches into a reality. Presented with this roadblock we racked our mind to find anything that we could do to make our summer meaningful, and in this mental search we recalled a presentation given to us in 4th grade about the importance of education and places around the world that didn’t have access to schools. Slowly, we dwelled into this idea of charitable services and, quickly realized that starting our own charity would be both beneficial to others and fulfill our desire of doing something big. Again we turned to the drawing board, but this time we had a mission, and as the summer came to a close we conceptualized the idea of [name] Foundation: a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education to impoverished areas around the world. Through our collaborative research, we concluded that building a school in Africa would be our first goal and we set off to make our dreams a reality.
Often times adults are “quantified” by the amount of work they do, but if that were the case we would’ve been senior citizens. In order to raise the $75,000 for our school, we started small: putting on car washes and going door to door. However one door quickly became over 3,451 doors and as we amassed money and reached milestones, non-profit and 501(c)(3) status, we started giving presentations to elementary schools and universities, crowdfunding online, working with companies, having a charity stream sponsored by top DOTA players, and receiving publicity through magazines and radio shows. After 3 years we had raised enough money to finally see our work become a reality. And on June 5th, 2016, we headed over to Kenya to see our classroom.
Thinking back on the journey, it feels like as soon as we landed, we were leaving. The trip was mind blowing in the sense that as I looked around the kids and watched them beaming with pride over their textbooks and desks, I realized that my efforts were meaningless compared to the emotions that these kids were experiencing. In all honesty, up until that moment, I had viewed the accomplishments that we had done as something no one in this world could duplicate. I had a false feeling of pride and condescension in my work, especially when charitable acts were supposed to be done out of love and respect. I think going to Africa, was a life changing moment for me because I was able to realize that my actions affect a lot more than just myself and my community, but rather have the impact to change the world. And knowing this is what made me an adult.