My Nonprofit Reviews

I've watched this program grow from a humble start to a program with a huge positive impact on our community's youth. They reach out across ages, sexes and cultures to help our youth learn how to be productive, fulfilled young adults. I'm very grateful for Michael Saigeon and other's vision and total, complete dedication. Their energy, commitment and passion are boundless.

The purpose of Africa Hope Fund is to educate children and preserve wildlife. This makes a difference to us here in the U.S. because conservation of wildlife affects the planet, not just a village.
I began as a tourist through Africa Hope Fund, fell in love with the people and the good work Carol Van Bruggen, Steve Kuhn and others are doing in Mfuwe, Zambia. This past summer, my daughter and I returned to volunteer in Uyoba School for a month to help with English.

What I love about Mfuwe Village in Zambia and the work we are doing there is that the people are so fiercely determined to see their children educated. Parents work very hard to see that their children get to school and they have scant resources. Even though they are often hungry and have walked many miles to get to school, students are focused and clearly aware of how important their education is. Yet there is also joy and strong sense of community where I saw much generosity and caring.

Africa Hope Fund raises funds and helps pull all the resources together so we can work collaboratively with a variety of programs. We help build and refurbish schools, we've provided books to schools where there were none previously. We help support several wildlife conservation efforts. We are determined to help reduce poaching in the national park by supporting programs that provide alternatives to hungry, impoverish people so they will protect the wildlife.

China's demand for ivory Zambia's other wildlife resources make this struggle more desperate. We have to provide alternatives to poaching endangered animals or they will end up like the rhinos which were already been hunted to extinction. Snares create unintended damage/death to elephants, giraffes, hyenas, and other wildlife.

There are no overhead or administrative salaries in our nonprofit. Every penny collected goes to education and wildlife protection. I fell in love with the people in Zambia and am grateful to Africa Hope Fund for introducing me. I intend to do all I can to help fill the needs we saw there last summer. It's not an easy task. Cultures can be different and time moves differently, sometimes it's two steps forward and one step backward. But we have stories to tell like the one about the shy young girl in primary school who now has her PhD and has returned to help with wildlife conservation. It's personal with us, we know their names and their stories and we are grateful for sponsors who help give them a future that benefits all of us.

More Feedback

I write about my community for a local publication. That is how I got to know Michael Saigeon and the Sheriff's Community Impact Program.Their mission is to foster productive citizens by engaging youth in dynamic community programs

There are a lot of folks out there with good intentions and big hearts who want to help our youth. But they don't always have the wisdom, intelligence and organization needed to sustain an effort like this. Michael and his crew do. They not only built this program, they did all the right things necessary for highly successful engagement with our youth . The variety of ways they reach young men and women and offer them alternatives is incredibly impressive. Those of us in the Arden Arcade Community who support this program know that our contributions of time and money will be used wisely and for the most benefit possible.

One only has to look at the faces of the youth attending the wide range of character-building yet engaging activiites to know they are changing lives. I know it hasn't been an easy job to build this nonprofit. Michael and the Sheriff's Department started it when the ecoomy was pretty bad. But I really appreciate his vision, passion, and commitment to changing lives. I plan to donate to their fundraiser today. It's one nonprofit I know will use every cent to help where it is needed most, our youth.

More Feedback