The smiles are electric, the joy is contagious, and the hope is palpable.
Tammi Crooks wasn’t prepared for such intense emotions as she visited Kenya for the first time with Seeds of Change this spring.
Crooks, who works as Talent Acquisition Coordinator in POET's Wichita, Kansas office, said the tears started to flow when the group pulled up to the Kakuswi School for the Deaf in Tawa, Kenya, where Seeds of Change has been sponsoring students and expanding
infrastructure since 2012.
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“The level of gratitude they have and how they expressed it — it was beautiful,” Crooks said.
A group of 13 POET team members, family, and Seeds of Change corporate sponsors spent three days at the school pitching in on construction projects and getting to know the students. The May 27-June 2 immersion trip was the group’s first visit to Kenya in five years; last year's group — Seeds of Change's first post-pandemic trip — traveled to Uganda.
POET Founder and CEO Jeff Broin and his wife, Tammie, founded Seed of Change in 2014 with a focus on improving educational opportunities, farming techniques, air and water quality, healthcare access, and more in African nations and elsewhere around the world.
“We had already supported some programs in Africa in the past and always knew we wanted to do more there,” said Tammie Broin, Seeds of Change Co-Founder and President. “The trip our family took to Kenya really changed all of our lives, and it's been incredible to see how Seeds of Change has developed over the last decade.”
The Kakuswi School — where the Broin family first traveled in Kenya and which served as something of an impetus for Seeds of Change — has been part of the organization since the beginning. And the progress has been astounding; this year's trip participants were able to see just how much progress has been made on the property where three small buildings once stood.
In 2012, those three buildings served as classrooms, dorms, a church, a kitchen, and more to 24 students with special needs. Because space was limited, the students ate their meals and played outside, usually sleeping two to three children per bunk at night.
“It’s very eye-opening. It’s something that's hard to imagine if you haven't had the opportunity to see it for yourself,” said Broin.
Today, 146 students are receiving a quality education at a pristine, full-size Kakuswi campus, complete with boys' and girls' dormitories, multi-level classroom buildings, staff housing, a dining hall, an administration block, a library, and an entire vocational school — thanks to support from Seeds of Change.
Each year's immersion trip group has traditionally taken part in a capital project of some sort, quite literally leaving their mark on the school. This year's group helped local masons build a perimeter wall for increased security and prepared classrooms for solar power. The projects are on track for summer completion, said Head Teacher Timothy Mukilya.
“The group was so friendly, loving, understanding, curious to know, active, and devoted to work,” he said.
Mukilya and the staff appreciate the work, but it’s the time volunteers take to get to know the students that is really special. If the welcome brought tears, the goodbye brought double.
“We bid them farewell and they painfully left with wells of tears filling their eyes due to love. It was awesome!” Mukilya said.
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Some participants have been moved so deeply by their experiences that just one trip isn't enough.
“Timothy's vision is really coming to fruition,” said Jan Eliason.
Jan and her husband, James Eliason, Materials Manager at POET Bioprocessing – Shelbyville, Indiana, participated in their first Seeds of Change trip in 2017. They now make a point to return each year. This was their first trip since COVID, and they were impressed with the progress.
Jan formed an especially close bond with a student at a Seeds of Change-supported girls' secondary school on her first trip. Rael is now 22, and the Eliasons have watched her balance boarding school with her family’s needs and navigate university. She’s about to graduate and aims for a career in data entry.
Jan is heartened by the priority Kenyans place on education.
“We asked the girls what they wanted to do on weekends, and all they wanted to do was study,” she said.
“It’s the simple things,” said Jerry Tegels, who works for H2O Innovation in Iowa. The company oversees several POET plant water systems and has long been a major corporate donor for Seeds of Change.
At the Kakuswi school, Tegels worked alongside a man who hoisted loads of bricks with his bare hands. Eventually, when he saw him wrap his blistered palms with burlap sacks, Tegels gave the man his work gloves, wishing he'd had enough for everyone.
Tegels finds himself looking through the pictures he took in Kenya and wondering what the kids and adults are doing now. Seeing Seeds of Change’s work firsthand makes the impact sink in.
“You don’t see Kenya as just a country or a large population anymore," he said. "Going there firsthand gives you perspective; you get to know people as individuals."
That’s the value of making face-to-face connections. On his first Seeds of Change trip, Levi Rustand, Accounting Analyst at POET’s Sioux Falls headquarters, came away with a new perspective on giving. Some may question why to use resources to send 13 people across the ocean when organizations could send just money.
“We learned how much our friends in Kenya cherish building relationships with people," he said.
POET Rail Logistics Specialist Lacey Campbell called those relationships the most impactful part of the trip.
“Just building relationships with people is so important,” she said. “It’s letting people know that we are physically here for them. We’re willing to travel to speak with them and hear their stories and share our stories.”
Sharing his experience with daily journals on Facebook drew a lot of interest from the friends and family of Shawn Eastman, Regional Account Manager with H2O Innovation in Champlin, Minnesota. He’s eager to share more. He and Tegels plan to put together a presentation for H2O Innovation partners across the U.S. and internationally.
With water being his business niche, Eastman would like to do more in the future to improve drinking water in Africa.
“If we could clean that water up for them, I know we could avoid a lot of sickness and disease,” he said.
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POET team members and families on the 2024 Seeds of Change immersion trip to Kenya
Rustand is inspired to do more, too. He’s ready to sign up as immersion trip volunteer No. 1 on next year’s trip, he said, and he encourages anyone to take the opportunity to go.
“I always have been a giver, but after the experience and seeing the work we’re doing, I’m fully invested in this,” he said.
“I knew we were doing a lot, but I didn’t realize the magnitude,” said Crooks, the POET team member from Wichita.
Crooks saw it in feeding programs that are bringing Maasai kids to school in record numbers and in the measurable growth she saw on the fields of Kenyan farms, another product of Seeds of Change programming.
Stalks of maize reached higher than Crooks's raised hand in a field planted with Seeds of Change guidance — a far cry from the barely-thigh-high stalks at a neighboring farm. In fact, the organization's agricultural initiative that began in Kenya is now transforming farms in 18 countries. To date, it has impacted nearly six million lives.
“Everything we experienced that Seeds of Change has their hands in, you see growth, you see joy, and you see hope,” Crooks said.
