One of the challenges of operating the Tenderfeet school is dealing with demanding educational officers from the city government who visit for inspections.

Mama Margaret at the textbook store. She has always dreamed of Tenderfeet being a school where every student has nice textbooks.

A recent requirement from them was that we buy the students multiple textbooks each, adding up to hundreds of books.

Adding up the costs of all the books would exceed $2000 USD.

Normally in Kenya, schools insist the students and their families purchase these books. Students that don’t pay for them are sent home, or have to share — sometimes four students share one textbook.

As you might imagine, Tenderfeet students could never afford to pay for the books, when most of their families can barely even afford rent and food.

For the Tenderfeet Foundation to cover the  cost of the textbooks would deeply cut into our emergency reserves and put us at risk of running short in lean months ahead.

That means we had to raise the money to buy the books, because otherwise, the officers threatened to close the school down if we didn’t.

We were blessed, however, that a group was planning to visit the school and inquired how they could help the school.

This group calls itself, “The Cousins Club”, and consists of cousins from several branches of a larger family.  The Grandparents of these cousins (ages 11 – 15) organize an annual trip as a family (please see below for a slideshow of their visit).

This year, they decided to visit Kenya and as part of preparing for their trip, they learned about Tenderfeet.

They contacted us and asked if we had any specific needs, and when they heard about the textbooks, this generous and thoughtful group immediately volunteered to raise the funds.

The textbooks were purchased ahead of the visit, and when the cousins arrived at Tenderfeet, they got to see the fruits of their generosity.

Tenderfeet students each show a new textbook. These are just a fraction of those purchased.

A fun-loving group, the cousins also had a great time playing soccer and games with the Tenderfeet students (please see slideshow above).

They were a big hit with the Tenderfeet kids, who enjoyed meeting and playing with young people from America.

We are so thankful to the cousins, the Grandparents (and parents!) of the Harnell, Murphy, Hartman, Cohen, and Wolf families.

For the Tenderfeet students, it means they will have excellent resources to assist in their learning.

Without textbooks, Tenderfeet teachers had to resort to writing all the concepts on the board, and having the children copy everything down.

Now, the students can read about the ideas, and see pictures and diagrams to provide greater depth of understanding.

These textbooks will last for years, making this wonderful contribution by the Cousins Club a truly lasting and meaningful one.