WONDERS OF HOPE | LOCAL ROOTS WITH A GLOBAL IMPACT
The Vision Realized: Wonders of Hope Comes to Life in Kibera
By Mike Sanchez for Gilroy Morgan Hill TODAY
Hope needed fertile ground. An entire community, on two continents, tilled it.
In 2022, we shared the story of Annie Fortino, a lifelong Gilroy resident, a mother, and a family law attorney who saw a need in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, and felt a calling to do something about it. That calling became the vision behind a new nonprofit, Wonders of Hope, which has since rebuilt a school and built a community center in Kibera. None of it would have worked without the resolve of the people it serves, or the support of donors back home. Annie ' s vision has become reality.
It was Annie ' s son, Niko, who first suggested the trip back in 2017, and was by her side when the pair met Martin Mwaniki at Kibera ' s Gifted Hands Educational Center. For Annie, that was the day everything changed. Her husband, Tim, has supported the mission from home ever since. This summer, the Fortinos hosted Mwaniki, who traveled from Kenya to Gilroy and the surrounding area to present Wonders of Hope to numerous small groups in public and private settings.
The need is tangible and clear. In Kibera, weekends mean parents leave before dawn searching for day labor, often locking children out of the house to fend for themselves until dark. Without somewhere safe to go, kids spend their Saturdays picking through sewage ditches for something to eat or play with, while teenage girls face real danger on the street. Annie and Mwaniki built Wonders of Hope Centre to answer one question: what if these kids had somewhere safe to go, where they were looked after, fed and loved?
In 2018, Annie set out to raise just $ 6,000 for a school van. Donors gave $ 35,000 instead, enough to rebuild the entire Gifted Hands school from the ground up.
The 2022 story shared the milestone of the community center ' s completion, the answer to the question posed above. That spring, Annie and her supporters set out to raise $ 20,000 at a fundraiser at Aldo ' s Restaurant in Los Gatos, enough to build a proper community center and church in Kibera. Donors from across Gilroy, Morgan Hill, and the greater South Bay gave more than double that. The community center held its grand opening that July and has been the hub of the organization ' s work ever since.
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