By TRACEY DRURY
Business First

Adoptive parents often mull how much information to share with a child, especially in the case of international adoption.

How, for example, does a father tell his daughter that most children back in her home country of Sierra Leone won't get the opportunity to go to school? That those who do get to attend primary school will likely turn to prostitution or a life of crime as they get older because there are no secondary schools available?

Rather than simply tell that story, some local adoptive families are hoping to change it.

As founders of the nonprofit EduNations organization, four adoptive fathers have already built two schools in Sierra Leone, a ravaged nation in the northwestern part of Africa. They are raising funds now to build two more.

Their story began with Ken Krieger's adoption in 2000 and 2002 of two little girls.

Krieger, a school psychologist at the Niagara Falls City School District and father of four, began sharing the story of the African orphanage with family and friends at church, with hopes of raising funds to help build an orphanage. That story inspired local families to adopt 20 children. All of them felt the need to do more to help the remaining children, including those who had families but couldn't afford to attend school.

"It was a combination of seeing (conditions in Sierra Leone) and having brought so many kids here and how they've thrived being exposed to education," he says. "There was a feeling of obligation to these kids we couldn't get out."

Other local EduNations officers include Ken Houseknecht, vice president of communications and investor relations at Gibraltar Industries; Mike Bader, vice president at Sanderson & Co. Investment Consultants LLC; and Rick Kennedy, a partner in Hodgson Russ LLP. In the years since establishing the organization - it was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in December 2005 - they've all been asked why they don't instead focus their efforts on supporting education here in Buffalo, where there's plenty of need.

Their response addresses economics and opportunity.

"Here, the opportunity for education is available for every kid. It is conversely the same in Sierra Leone," says Houseknecht, comparing Buffalo's relative poverty to Sierra Leone's absolute poverty. "These are families and kids who desperately want education, and it's unavailable to them - and they will sacrifice everything to get it."

Building and equipping a school there is also much more affordable than it would be here: $25,000 will fund the construction of a school building with six classrooms and storage, while $1,000 per month provides funds for 10 teachers and another $1,000 per year funds enough books, slates and materials to last a year.

Currently, 570 students attend primary school in grades 1-6 at EduNations-funded schools. By September, when a new primary and secondary school are completed, that number will exceed 1,000. This year, the organization received an extra boost when a book publisher donated $150,000 in books to build libraries at the schools. It also is partnering with other aid organizations to help address other needs.

On June 13, EduNations will stage a fundraiser at Babeville, the restored Asbury Methodist Church on Delaware Avenue, to help fulfill a commitment made last year to raise another $50,000 to build two more schools. Nearly all of those funds will be redirected back to the effort in Africa. EduNations, which has no paid staff, hopes to ultimately help the schools become self-sufficient.

"We're just some dads interested in food and books - not fancy fundraisers," Kennedy says.

For information, go to www.edunations.org.

 

Photo convinced family to adopt

When they saw a board displaying photographs of 20 orphans from Sierra Leone, Rick Kennedy's family knew they wanted to adopt Mabinty, who was 3 at the time.

"We walked into church one morning, and the four of us were drawn to the same picture of the little girl," Kennedy said of himself, wife Christine and college-age children Elyse and John. "We said, ‘We can't leave her there. She belongs with us.' "

The placard was placed in Knox Presbyterian Church in Kenmore by Ken Krieger in 2003. He sought to raise funds to improve the conditions at the Cherith International Children's Center when he traveled to Sierra Leone to adopt two orphans. Krieger didn't expect that nearly all of those 20 orphans would be adopted by a Western New York family.

"All these other families had the same reaction (we did), but with different kids," Kennedy said.

That led four dads, including Kennedy - an environmental lawyer and assistant general counsel at Hodgson Russ LLP - to form EduNations, with a goal of raising funds to build schools in Sierra Leone.

"I'm trying not to be the organization's lawyer, just one of the members of the board of directors, and help guide its work," he said.

Those 20 Sierra Leonean children and their adoptive families welcome new arrivals to Buffalo and regularly meet to provide a support network.

"These kids are painfully aware that they're African kids living in white America. I think it has helped most of these kids make a smooth adjustment," Kennedy said.

Kennedy's adopted daughter, who likes to be called Mae, is now 8 and loves to read, downhill ski, golf and dance. Stable homes with food, medical care and love, he said, has allowed the adoptees to "blossom."

"The best thing we could do is build schools for the kids to honor my girl's concerns for the kids left behind," he said.

- By Jodi Sokolowski