Julie Lindell Wins $10K for Orphans

Julie Lindell Wins $10K for Orphans Amway Grant to Global Awareness Club Member for Kenya Orphanage. Julie Lindell will be a senior at Shoreham-Wading River High School in September.

Julie Lindell will be a senior at Shoreham-Wading River High School in September. She is just starting college applications. She says, “Right now, I still have a lot of college visits to do. I like the bigger schools with lots of opportunities because I like meeting different types of people. I want to major in music education. I think teachers are really important people, and music can be very powerful both for the musician and the audience. I want to help and inspire others like so many teachers have helped and inspired me. That’s my goal in life, whether I’m teaching, joining the Peace Corps, or just walking down the street.”

Under the guidance of Kevin Mann, social studies teacher at SWR and advisor to the Global Awareness Club, Julie applied for, and was granted, a $10,000 grant from Amway to use to help the children in Kenya, Africa. Amway chose up to 10 winners out of 158..

The Global Awareness Club is involved with the Hope Children’s Fund (HCF) in Port Jefferson, a non-profit organization that runs an orphanage in the city of Meru, Kenya. Members of the Club, such as Julie Lindell, travel to Kenya to work and mentor the children. Mann, and students in the Global Awareness Club, have been making trips to Kenya since 2007. They have conducted fundraisers to help build a technical training school near the orphanage.

JULIE WRITES:

“As far as winning the grant goes, I didn’t do it all on my own. I wouldn’t have ever known about it if it weren’t for Mr. Mann. I was also lucky to have the support of the other HCF volunteers, friends, and family in voting for my entry so that it would be in the top 100 entries (the judges only read the top 100 that were voted on by the public). But really, the kids won the grant for themselves. I was just the facilitator that put my name on the application. I made my application stand out by channeling the love and inspiration from the kids at the home in Kenya…”