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Growing Community Roots
2022 Thanksgiving Newsletter

As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Growing Community Roots Board of Directors thanks you for your continued support with your gifts and prayers of our work in West Kenya. For the past 12 years, GCR has worked to further the vision of Sister Rosita Aranita. You have helped us make her vision a reality.

We have accomplished 12 schools to date and have raised the funds for our 2023 School Project - $38,650 for water tank systems, toilets with roofs for both the girls and boys, washrooms and a washstand, and fencing for a community garden, for the 2023 School Project Jonye Integrated Primary School, in Homa Bay, Kenya.

The completed garden, a new water catchment system, and new sinks at Rarua Integrated Primary School.

We are grateful to have a trustworthy NGO partner in Kenya – IMBO Community Action Program (ICAP) that follows a six-step process for funding, implementation and oversight of the school projects. ICAP conducts annual On-Site visits and evaluations of each school. There are three Kenyan Consociates on the IMBO Community Action Program Board – Mary Lieta, Leah Lieta, and Serphine Mambe. The CEO of ICAP Samuel Lieta, is also a Consociate.

IMBO Community Action Program Board of Directors

Your investment goes directly to water catchment systems that provide safe water for drinking and bathing, latrines that offer privacy and washrooms, and wash stands, fencing for community gardens that ensure children have nutritious meals at school and tree farms that help address the critical deforestation problem that exists in Homa Bay.

We have accomplished our work because of You - individual donors, the Circle of Angels donors, and grants received from five organizations:

• CSJ Ministry Support Fund, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Los Angeles Province

• Change for Global Change, Mount Saint Joseph Convent

• Partners in Justice, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Paul Province

• Step Board of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, Albany Province

• Tabitha Grant Committee, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Louis Province

Our partnership explicitly demonstrates the CSJ call to respond boldly to the injustices in the world and exemplifies our commitment to work toward dismantling systems of oppression by standing with the poor and the oppressed, especially with women and girls.

Thanksgiving blessings to you and your loved ones,

Growing Community Roots Board of Directors

Anita S. Duckor, CSJ Consociate, St. Paul Province, President and Co-Founder
Sister Angela Faustina, CSJ Sister, Los Angeles Province, Vice President
Secretary: Dorothy Hathway, CSJ Associate, Albany Province
Treasurer: Ann Shields, CSJ Consociate, St. Paul Province
Anne Hannahan, CSJ Consociate, St. Paul Province, Board Member and Co-Founder
Maureen Freeman, CSJ Sister, St. Louis Province, Board Member
Linda Neil, CSJ Sister, Albany Province, Board Member
Therese Sherlock, CSJ Sister, St Paul Province, Board Member

To learn more about the 12 schools where we have finished our work, visit our website www.growingcommunityroots.org