Skonnard's Video of July 2012 Expedition

4 members of the Skonnard family and 3 members of the Guest family participated in the July expeditions.  With the help of their Hidden Springs neighborhood in Fruit Heights, Utah, they raised funds to build the classrooms at Bofu, which were dedicated during our expedition.  The Skonnards put together this great video with photos and video of the July trip.  It is a great overview of many of the activities the expeditions participate in while in Kenya.


Asante, Skonnards, Guests and the Hidden Springs community.  It is clear the joy those efforts brought to the villagers of Bofu.

New Eagle Scout and a School Fundraiser

Brayden Christenson, who went to Kenya in August to build desks for the Austin Frampton School in Dzivani, had his Eagle Scout Court of Honor on Sunday, January 9.  Brayden is now officially an Eagle Scout.  We are so proud of Brayden for his diligent efforts, and grateful that he chose to work with Koins for Kenya to attain this rank.

Last Tuesday, Brayden and his mom, Sherrie, went to Church Hill Jr. High in Salt Lake City, where they spoke to the 9th grade honors English class about Kenya and the work Koins is doing there. The students were very excited and the student body officers were going to kick off a school wide fundraiser starting today. The day after they spoke, Sherrie's friend sent a picture of the jar of coins her honors students had collected in one day.

Way to go Church Hill!  It is through such donations that the Wind Ridge Elementary School in Farmington has funded the building of 3 classrooms, desks, uniforms and a cistern at the Wind Ridge School in Chikomani, Kenya over the past several years.

In fact, it was the 6th grade class of 2003 at Wind Ridge that coined the phrase "Koins for Kenya" that ultimately became the official name of our foundation.  And with the coins of many donors over the years, we have built classrooms, cisterns, desks, libraries, science centers, and many other projects in our service area of Kenya.


I am looking forward to tracking the progress of Church Hill's fundraiser.  They might help us build that school at Gona!


Asante Sana

Brayden's Thoughts on his 2010 Kenyan Eagle Project

Brayden with finished desks ready to deliver to Dzivani Primary school

My trip to Africa was so amazing! I went to Kenya to build school desks for my Eagle Scout project. It was great to work along side the villagers. After going to the schools the first day and seeing their old buildings with children sitting on dirt floors with bugs or squishing to sit four or five kids across a desk made for three, I knew we had to build as many desks as we could. It was hard because we kept running out of wood and screws and one day the power went out so we couldn't run the equipment. It was good to watch the desks be loaded up on a trailer behind the Koins tractor and taken to the new schools. I knew the kids would be very happy to use them!

Kids will sit 3-4 to a desk in the classrooms

Brayden working on making desks

Finished desks ready to load up for delivery

Brayden in front of Koins tractor ready to deliver new desks to Dzivani

Brayden with Mike, Curt and the Kenyan workshop crew, sitting on finished desks

Brayden and his mom, Sherrie, in Kenya

 Even if I hadn't have been doing my Eagle project, I still would have loved going to Kenya to build the desks because I learned so much and made a lot of new friends!