Here at Child Scholars, we are gearing up for a very BIG day in the nonprofit world: this year’s #GivingTuesday. We want to make this year’s global day of philanthropy our best yet—please join the movement and help make education education a reality for disenfranchised kids in Africa.

I wanted to send you a note to thank you for your generous support this past year. Your contribution during our fundraising event helped us provide education to more than 40 disenfranchised kids in Nigeria. It was an amazing thing to accomplish. Without you, we simply would not have reached as many kids.

Public school is not free in Nigeria. Lee University alum Emmanuel Okenye experienced this firsthand while growing up in the town of Ikorodu, and he often had to skip meals in order to pay for his education. Years later, in an effort to offer better education and health care to children in Nigeria, Okenye started the nonprofit Child Scholars shortly after he graduated from Lee.

When he was growing up in Nigeria, Emmanuel Okenye, OMS III, says his family’s grocery money was often spent on his and his siblings’ schooling. Okenye vowed that if he got into college someday, he would find a way to help kids living in poverty go to school.