Gratitude Is the Best Feeling

By Merritt Frey, Executive Director

Here in the United States, those who celebrate Thanksgiving are hopefully taking time out from turkey and football to contemplate gratitude. Here at Mali Rising, we are reminded nearly every day of how much we have to be grateful for and how that spirit can move around the world. Here are just a few of the reasons we are filled with thanks:

• We are grateful for our donors, who make all of the work we do possible. We are particularly grateful for their generosity during our recent Gift of Education Giving Challenge, which will allow our schools to thrive this school year.

• We are thankful for our volunteers, who help us do a lot with a little! Without the help of volunteers, or tiny staff could never tackle the important projects that help our students learn and feel supported.

• We are full of respect for our teachers and principal, who work so hard to turn a building into a real school. They make the investments from our donors and volunteers turn into a real education.

• We are grateful for our staff in Mali, who brave rough roads on a motorcycle and dusty meetings under mango trees to make sure our kids have what they need to learn.

• We send our admiration to our students’ parents, who often have to decide between having some much needed help in the fields to bring in the crops or sending their child to school, and so often find a way to get their child to school.

• And we send our largest appreciation to our students, who do the hard work in their classrooms everyday of turning a simple building and some textbooks into a better future for themselves and for all of us around the world.

We are so grateful that we can all come together — from a donor in Canada to a volunteer in the U.S. to a student in Mali — to build a better future for all of us. Thank you for all you do!