In 2023, Mary Ratkovich, a Macalester College Alum, of 1966, reached out to Kijana President, James P. Cummings, sharing her work with a book collecting organization in the Denver area and offering us containers worth of sorted, cleaned, vetted books for a variety of ages. Their organization was offering us the books for free if we provided the shipping. We received a generous donation allowing us to ship one container of books, containing over 60,000 books to Kenya.
They were recently collected from near Denver and are on the way to New Jersey, where they will then head over to Kenya. We expect tthe books to be there by early November. Mary Ratkovich has served as a volunteer with SCOPE for many years and we are most grateful for this newly developed relationship. We intend to distribute most of the books to neighboring schools and possibly launch a local public library. Some of the books will also serve as a foundation for our new library/media center and amphitheater, which we are beginning construction on in the days ahead. This is also a story of relationship building and the power of a liberal arts education. A college liberal arts education and advancement opportunity does not end at graduation. It can be a toehold into a lifetime of learning, growing and connection building. Thank you again to Mary and her colleagues at SCOPE in Colorado and thank you to Macalester College for strengthening both of our callings to invest in a better world.