The Kerry Jon Walker Fund Expands Boston Public School Mission Service Program

The Kerry Jon Walker Fund (KJWF), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping humanity and supporting those affected by poverty, announces the expansion of its mission trip program to serve the technical/vocational students at Roxbury’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. The program was founded to serve students in a collaboration with Boston’s Snowden International School in 2012, providing educational opportunities for financially challenged teens, enhancing their potential to grow into strong citizen leaders. Students selected for the program learn about and participate in KJWF’s mission to improve the quality of life of those suffering from poverty by promoting sustainable programs to improve health, education and economic opportunity for those in need.

KJWF’s mission collaborations provide opportunities for urban school teens to travel abroad in charitable service. In the past several years, KJWF has sponsored seven Snowden graduates to travel to Rwanda, serving victims of the country’s genocide at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, home and school for 500 orphaned teens. While serving the community, the Boston teens gained a new understanding of the difficult issues that homeless families in third world countries often suffer. The students bonded with friends across the world who had once lived alone or in child-led households, and who survived daily conditions that lacked clean water, electricity and reliable food sources. The Snowden students served and bonded with their homeless peers abroad, creating global objectivity previously not in their vision.

A fourth mission trip is in the works for the summer of 2016, an opportunity for students from both schools to work together on the cause. Madison Park High School educator Helena Rayne could not be more excited about the opportunity. “This is an amazing opportunity for myself as well as the students at Madison Park. Our students will be able to give back in a way that they never have before. They’ll experience a part of the world that they might never have been able to see, it is an experience of a lifetime. I look forward to collaborating with the Fund and hope that we can expand our work together in the future.”

Enhancing the education of youth is at the heart of The Kerry Jon Walker Fund’s mission. During a first trip to Guinea, West Africa in 2005, one of the world’s poorest countries, KJWF founder Mikey Walker experienced a deeper understanding of the problems plaguing third-world countries. Shaken by the experience of widespread poverty, yet deeply touched by the generosity freely given by those who had so little, Walker transformed her personal journey into a greater mission to help. On return trips, she assisted children in attending school, and transported donations of clothes, educational materials and medical supplies to those in need.

From this life changing experience, Walker became inspired to found the Kerry Jon Walker Fund (KJWF) in 2010, in memory of her late son. She continues to serve as the non-profit organization’s president, dedicated to helping humanity and enhancing the education of youth in America and abroad, promoting initiatives designed to improve the quality of life for those who suffer from poverty and its consequences. To date, the Fund has collected and shipped 3,000 pounds of children’s books, uniforms and educational materials to needy children in Guinea. By bringing literacy and educational necessities to children across the world, KJWF provides them with the hope to aspire to a better future for themselves and their communities. This effort keeps the spirit of Walker’s late son alive, by giving to the lives of others, and helping other young people achieve their dreams.

For more information about Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, visit http://www.madisonparkhs.org/. For more information about the Kerry Jon Walker Fund, or to make a donation, visit www.thekerryfund.org.