A generous friend who wishes to remain anonymous offered up the following challenge to help Jonas attend Sterling College!
She will send Sterling $100 a month to go towards Jonas' tuition over the next 5 months (so, a total of $500!), if we can find 16 other people willing to do the same by August 16th.
Are you, your church, or civic group willing to be one of those 16 by August 16??
Let us know by emailing katelarose1@gmail.com or calling 802-238-2226 and we will be in touch with the details.
(Important Note: We are not a non-profit...we're just two people wanting to help Jonas. So while your gift is not tax deductible, you'll have our and Jonas' undying appreciation and promise to pay it forward as soon as we can!)
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Day 1: August 9, 2018
15 years ago I made a promise to an eight year old boy. I promised that I would do everything in my power to help provide for a brighter future and education for him and his sisters. Little did I know that in fulfilling that promise, that little boy and his sisters would become my family.
The last four years have been a dream come true for Jonas and our family! He passed his baccalaureate exam on his first try, his second visa to the US was approved, he learned English at St. Mike’s, passed his TOEFL, and earned his acceptance and $32k in scholarships a year to Sterling College! We were told—every step of the way—that it was an impossible dream. But we kept the faith, and he kept working as hard as he could.
Per his visa, Jonas is still technically an international student. That means he is ineligible for student loans (as are we on his behalf). So we turned to creating wine and beer racks, can redemption drives, and using up our savings. That helped. But we were still falling short.
It was the support of over 200 of our neighbors, family, and friends that helped turn the impossible dream into a reality! With your help, we raised over $30k and were able to get Jonas through his freshman and sophomore years. Most of this was made possible through the awesome giving challenge started by our friend.
(In two weeks' time over 20 people came together to donate $8k...an answer to our prayers, and a continual reminder that angels are everyday people among us!)
Next Sunday Jonas will start his junior year! After the yard sale, and Jonas’ community advisor work, we have whittled down his remaining balance for the year to $8,500.
As with the past two years, our amazing friend has once again reached out with a giving challenge. If we can get 16 people or groups of people to commit to giving $500 (that’s $100 a month for the next five months), she will do the same.
Are you, your church, or friends willing to be one of those 16 by August 16?
Can you help me keep my promise?
Day 2: August 10, 2018
Today is Day 2 of the matching gift challenge for Jonas. Thanks to Caroline, Christine, Richard, and a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, we have already raised $2,500 of the $8,500 needed!
Amazing!
I’ve shared this video before, but am sharing it again because I love it so. This is Tioyo, Jonas’ village where he grew up, where I met him, and where most of his family still lives. Here's a little taste of what you're seeing: huts among crops, young girls pounding millet into flour, malaria medicine boiling, the family's living quarters, shea nuts drying in the sun, making afternoon tea, the liveliness of market day, returning home from a day of working the crops, a toddler being a toddler, transportation to the next village up the road. Close your eyes to get the full experience of the sounds of village life!
We need $6,000 more by August 16th (that’s 12 more gifts of $500…or $100 a month for five months).
Will you be one of these 12 people so Jonas can start his junior year of college?
Day 3: August 11, 2018
Will you be one of these 12 people so Jonas can start his junior year of college?
Day 3: August 11, 2018
Today is Day 3 of the matching gift challenge for Jonas and we still need to raise $6,000 by August 16th.
Jonas is one of those people who is just naturally talented (at pretty much everything). His first winter at Sterling, he decided to join the cross country ski team (despite not having ever skied before). His first race was a week after he tried on skis for the first time in his life. The first time he went downhill skiing, Josh informed me that his turns were better than mine. He then decided to try out cross country trail running. And he placed in his first race. He decided he wanted to learn to salsa dance. And a few months later he was teaching lessons at his school.
This is how it goes with Jonas. He has a nonstop interest in learning, and completely dedicates himself to whatever task is at hand. For example, during his fall two week intensive course he decided he wanted to learn how to make pottery. This is the photo of pieces from his pottery show two weeks later (several of which he sold).
Jonas brings this level of engagement, mastery, and dedication to all of his experiences, especially his schooling. He wants nothing more than to be able to continue on to his junior year.
We need $6,000 more by August 16th (that’s 12 more gifts of $500…or $100 a month for five months).
Can you be one of these 12 people so Jonas can start his junior year of college?
Day 4: August 12, 2018
Today is Day 4 of the matching gift challenge for Jonas and we are thrilled to share that three more donors have given $1,150 today!Yesterday I shared how naturally talented Jonas is at so many things. One of these things is being a brother. Jonas has five siblings back home in Burkina he loves dearly. And he has one brother here in the United States—our five year old, Jaxon.
Jaxon has only ever known Jonas as his big brother. He misses him when Jonas is away at school, and wants to be exactly like him pretty much all of the time (except for when they are fighting over who gets to sit where, and who is looking at whom). Jaxon has learned how to play soccer, cross country ski, break dance, and harvest tomatoes all because of Jonas.
Thinking about the opportunities that Jaxon has that Jonas (and his five other siblings) don’t—simply because of the country and zip code he was lucky enough to be born into—is heartbreaking at times. But that won’t keep us from trying to make opportunities!
We still need to raise $4,850 more by August 16th (that’s only 9.7 more gifts of $500…or $100 a month for five months).
Can you help to create this opportunity for Jonas?
Day
5: August 13, 2018
Today is day 5 of the matching gift
challenge and we received incredible news today! Three more donors have
contributed another $1,025. We are more than halfway there to making Jonas’ junior
year a possibility!!
Today I want to share Jonas’ impressive growth in English. Jonas grew up primarily speaking Loberi and Djoula. He learned French—the language of instruction in Burkina Faso—when he started school. His foreign language classes included German and English. In the winter of 2016, Jonas attended a semester long English course at St. Michael’s college. His TOEFL scores after 8 weeks were high enough that he was able to apply for admission at Sterling. His language skills continued to grow by leaps and bounds; in the spring of 2017 he took a creative writing class, and in the winter of 2017 and spring of 2018 found him pairing his writing, research, and analytical skills through his environmental law and policy classes.
I invite you to click on this link to check out Jonas’ writing samples over the past two and a half years. In addition to hearing in his own voice why education is so important to him and why he decided to change his major from law to sustainable agriculture, you’ll note incredible growth in his English language skills in just a 30 month window! To add to the challenge, all assignments in Burkina were handwritten so he has also learned to type and get confident using a computer during that short time frame. Go Jonas!
We
still need to raise $3,825 more by August 16th (that’s only 7.65
more gifts of $500…or $100 a month for five months).
Can
you be one of these 7.65 people?
Day
6: August 16, 2018
Today is day 6 of the matching gift
challenge. (But only because I am
running for state rep, there was a primary, and I finally found time to sleep
last night…so we kinda skipped a few days.)
Thanks to my friend Mike for his generous contribution, we only need $3,750 more to make Jonas’ junior year a possibility!
Given the election, Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday were a whirlwind for me. Honk
and waves, standing outside the polls (in humidity, sun, and multiple
downpours), celebratory events, community learning events. And just like he always has been, Jonas was
there with me every step of the way. He’s
stood alongside the interstate on-ramp with me waving to people at 6am. He’s toured the wastewater treatment facility
with me. He came to City Hall after I
had stood there with a busted ankle for five hours straight and buoyed my
spirits with his humor. He beat me at
corn hole at one gubernatorial election watch party, and shared in the
jubilance in the room at another as Vermont and Christine made history. He has paraded in 42 degree rain with a Kate
Larose t-shirt on, and has knocked doors with me.
And he was a huge part of why I decided
to run. After the presidential election
I was initially embarrassed that he was seeing the darkest corners of our humanity
and democracy as a country. But then the
embarrassment turned to fear as Confederate flags started popping up around
town, more ICE trucks started driving past our street, and people felt
emboldened to say things to him that they had never said before.
Over the winter I was down in Montpelier
a lot testifying at the state house. And
Jonas replied nonchalantly to a Facebook posting, “Oh yeah I’m here, too!” Turns out he had been watching testimony and
in committee rooms every week that semester due to his interest in cleaning up
Lake Carmi.
This is what gives me hope. That though he has quite possibility seen the
worst of our democracy, he has also seen the best, too. And he will take both of those experiences
with him back to Burkina to make his country stronger.
Can you help turn this hope into
action? We need to raise $3,750 by
Saturday (that’s only 7.5 more gifts of $500, or $100 a month for five
months).
Will you be one of these 7.5 people?
Day
7: August 17, 2018
Tomorrow is the last day of the matching
gift challenge. Thanks to the generous
contribution of a family member, we only need $3,250 more when we move Jonas
back in to Sterling on Sunday!
The entire time I’ve known Jonas, even
as a little boy of seven, he has talked about luck. He felt lucky for the opportunity to start
and complete primary school. Lucky to
secure a spot at the middle and high schools in the city. Lucky to survive his eight months of illness
with typhoid fever. Lucky to get his
visas approved to visit and then attend school in the US. And lucky to be able to realize his dream of
attending university.
But watching Jonas along this journey, I
know that it is due to so much more than luck!
It is due to his hard work and sacrifice. Because of his eternally positive
disposition, people might miss the depth of this sacrifice Jonas is
making. But it is always there and I
know it is his deep love for his family and his country that drives him. At 20 years old he stepped on a plane not
knowing what awaited him ahead, and not knowing when he would be coming
back. He said goodbye to his friends and
family. His language and culture. These things are in the background and
challenging on a daily basis. And the
sacrifice is magnified during times of extreme hardship like earlier this year
when his father died. Because of his
visa, he could not go back to Burkina to grieve with his family. See his father buried. Give his mother a hug.
He endures these sacrifices because he
wants to make a better life for his family and have the means to ensure his
sisters and cousins can go to school. To
ensure that his aging mother doesn’t have to work long days in the rice fields
so that she has food to eat. To make certain
that no one in his family dies for lack of money for medical care.
I believe that Jonas has always made his
own good fortune in life through his labor of love and the generosity of the
many angels he has met along the way…everyday people inspired by his
story. And right now, Jonas needs more
of this “luck” so he can start his junior year.
Can
you help give some luck? We need to
secure $3,250 more by Sunday, and every single dollar helps.
Day
8: August 18, 2018
Today is the last day of the matching
gift challenge. We are grateful to have
received another donation yesterday, and still need to raise $3,200 more to
make Jonas’ junior year possible.
(Yikes!!)
Tomorrow is move-in day for Jonas, as he
will serving as a community advisor for his second year. Jonas is a natural leader and teacher. In fact, his experiences at Sterling last
year (which included learning to be a wood worker and cheese maker, and teaching preschool
for a semester) have convinced him to add on an education minor to his sustainable
agriculture major.
Jonas was also selected to be a teaching
assistant this fall, and will be TA’ing “A Sense of Place”, the two week class
all incoming Sterling students take to become acquainted with the ecological
and environmental tenets of Sterling, and to be set them up for success as a community
member of the college.
At Sterling (a school of just over 100
students) they understand the critical importance—and value the contributions—of
each and every community member. In a
lot of respects, it is similar to the communalistic culture of village life and
feels like a second home to Jonas. In a
lot of respects, it should be what we endeavor for all of our communities, and
for democracy.
I can’t wait to see what the next
several decades hold for Jonas (and for all of us!) in his future roles as
community leader and educator. In the
meantime, we need to be able to get him through his junior year.
Can
you help? We need to secure $3,200 by
tomorrow and every single dollar helps!
Move In Day!
Amazing!!
We just
arrived at Sterling and unpacked the car. During the night and throughout this
morning we kept receiving word of additional donations and were $950 short as
we loaded up the car. There is zero
reception up here but once we connected to the internet we received word that—thanks
to the generosity of contributions by Lisa and Cameron—we met the goal!!!!!
Jonas' junior year is paid for!!!!
More than 40 families
made this possible this year between yard sale donations and monetary
contributions! We are humbled by the number of everyday angels in this world
and in our lives. Thank you!!!! (Enjoy this video from Jonas...and ignore the
clumsy ending...we were wiping away tears of joy from our eyes!)
