STEPS Announces Grant Recipients for Fall 2011

The Hall STEPS Foundation is thrilled to announce that KickStart and World Vision are its two grant recipients for fall 2011!

Our mission this season is two-fold: to contribute to innovative efforts in Kenya that focus on social enterprise and long-term sustainability; and to provide immediate support to emergency relief work in the Horn of Africa, a region which is enduring its worst drought in 60 years. KickStart and World Vision are two wonderful, inspiring organizations committed to helping people in need, and STEPS is grateful for the opportunity to support their ongoing work.

KickStart develops and promotes simple money-making tools that unlock business opportunities for thousands of poor farmers. Thanks to the use of these tools, nearly 600,000 people are no longer living in poverty. By combining the transformative power of technology, the entrepreneurial spirit of the world’s poorest people, and the permanence of the private sector marketplace, KickStart is changing the way the world fights poverty. KickStart is active in Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and their pumps are distributed by other NGOs in more than 20 countries. Learn more at www.kickstart.org.

 

 

 

World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families, and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Today, our friends at World Vision are responding to dire needs in the Horn of Africa by supporting interventions involving food aid, health, nutrition, water and sanitation, and livelihood protection. Ryan & Sara Hall have proudly supported the organization’s efforts ever since the couple traveled with World Vision in 2008 to Zambia, a country in Southern Africa. World Vision has a 5X multiplier on all charitable gifts toward the crisis in East Africa, which means that our STEPS grant will be multiplied by five!  Learn more about World Vision at www.wvi.org.

Also, as part of our “26.2 Challenge,” STEPS committed thousands of dollars earlier this year to help complete construction of a new hospital in Kenya’s Rift Valley in the home village of Wesley Korir, an elite runner and dear friend of STEPS.

 

We are also happy to announce progress is being made on the Rift Valley Hospital, a grant that was designated in 2010.  Those on the ground in Kenya sent us an email on 11/17/2011 with the following progress update and pictures:

1.      Public toilet is almost complete
2.      Blustering of the main block in and outside is complete
3.      Water tank has been bought and its stand completed.
4.      Wall electrification channel completed
5.      Water piping system is going on, materials bought.
6.      Ceiling frames complete
7.      Those doing mason work have been paid depending on what level they
have done the required work.

 

 

To see other past grants click here!

. Posted by Steps Foundation.