Kwa Heri (Good Bye), 2012!

As I look back on 2012, I can’t help but sit in wonder at all that has been done here in Kitongo, Tanzania and with JBFC. We have grown, matured, taken on new challenges and explored new dreams for our girls. But for all that we have gained this year, I can't think about the year without first considering what we lost.

The year started with a great challenge; the loss of our namesake and my beloved grandmother, Janada “Mimi” Batchelor. She was the driving force and inspiration behind the founding of JBFC and as we come to the close of a year, we are deeply humbled and grateful to be able to carry on her legacy and name. But the JBFC family in Tanzania and in the US have rallied around me and my family, helping us cope with our loss and have the kind of year Mimi would be proud of. 2012 has been our biggest year of growth yet. 

On December 7^th, we closed our school for the “summer” term. This marked the close of the first full year of our new secondary school (the Tanzanian version of high school). While a high school education may seem commonplace to most of us in the US, it is something greatly sought after here in Tanzania and something most of our students would not have been able to receive without the Joseph and Mary Secondary School opening its doors. 2012 also saw 100% of our 7th graders passing the Tanzanian national exam - that's the third year in a row we can claim such success!

This year, we started seriously looking forward to our girls’ futures. While we have always focused on imprinting our girls with a variety of life skills, we decided it was time to take it to the next level in 2012 and opened Papa’s College of Tourism and Hotel Management. This weekend restaurant and getaway is aimed at not only helping JBFC reach its goal of self-sustainability in country, but also helping to train our secondary students to successfully enter the workforce. 

As always JBFC's campus in Kitongo has been a flurry of activity in the last year. We have expanded our farm projects, added several acres bringing our total footprint to 60 acres,  started construction of a large central office building for our organization, and made many other improvements around campus.

 However, as you all well know, it is not the buildings and programs that make our organization such a success. It is the people: you, our supporters, our entire staff, and all of our children. So, as we come to the close of this year, I want to leave you all with the reminder of the girls that we were able to save. 

Many of you know about Esther, who came to us in January- only 14 pounds at four years old. But as she is getting ready to celebrate the New Year, she can walk, talk, boss her sisters around and is walking to preschool on her own! And, then there are Gertruda and Shida, two young girls whose parents passed away leaving them nowhere to turn. They were alone for months before joining the JBFC family. 

They are the reason we keep moving, and they are the reason we are so grateful for everything ahead.

Thank you for everything you all have enabled us to do, during this year and we wish you the very best “mwaka mpya” (New Year)!

Chris Gates is Founder & Executive Director of JBFC, shown here with JBFC students Eliza and Saleh (April 2012, Cindy Johnson, Photographer).

Christmas at JBFC

A long-time JBFC supporter and board member explains why he chooses to spend his Christmas Holiday at his second home, JBFC.



In 2009 after two summer trips to JBFC, I decided to travel back for Christmas with the girls. Never in my imagination did I know just how awesome an experience it would be.

So awesome, in fact, that I am departing for my fourth JBFC Christmas! 

There is no traditional fir Christmas tree and definitely no chance of a white Christmas.

But there is something about decorating our mango branch Christmas tree and hanging stockings for all 42 girls of our girls. We cook dinner for about 75 people and share a feast with such a wonderful family! Our night ends with song and prayer and we all reflect on how blessed we are. 



Watching the girls grow up over the years and take on more of the responsibility of decorating, cooking and cleaning has been a privilege and pleasure. 








Everyone should spend at least one Christmas at JBFC!












Jim Agnello has been a JBFC board member since 2009. As an administrator at Bronxville High School in New York, he also leads a student volunteer trip to JBFC every summer.

On Christmas Holiday with JBFC

UPDATE: more pictures of JBFC's Christmas vacation on our Facebook page.
About four years ago, we started the holiday tradition of going on a family vacation for Christmas. As our family has grown from a dozen girls to nearly FOUR DOZEN children, this has been a wonderful bonding experience for all of us.

These fun-filled family vacations haven't been without the kind of trials and tribulations (see the picture about African roads) that great family memories are made of (you know the ones that are incredibly frustrating in the moment and hilarious in the aftermath).

So enjoy our family vacation through these pictures and Merry Christmas to you and yours.

This year, the Christmas vacation destination was a campground in the Serengeti National Wildlife Park. It's a beautiful lodge called Kijereshi, where we can camp out, swim, and enjoy. We set out from our campus in Kitongo in high spirits, but it wasn't long before we saw this sign.

But we soldiered on (our bus might have gotten stuck a couple of times) and we arrived here.

 It's a a gorgeous campsite, but for the kids, this was the real draw...

JBFC pretty much took over the pool.

 The girls were having so much fun swimming, we had to make them get out and rest (it had been five hours straight). Here's Yonga flying through the air....

We started calling Yonga starfish, because she would lay spread eagle in the water, try to float, and inevitably sink to the bottom of the pool.

After our two days of fun, this is what we ran into on the way home.

Yes, that is a dam in the middle of the road. A farmer decided he was more in need of a water source for his cows than a road.

It took a while, but we all made it back to campus safe, sound, and full of Christmas cheer.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Cookies & Books: A Sweet Combination

This holiday season, you can help turn sweet treats into brain food.

93 Million cookies away, JBFC has a beautiful, brand-new library, but our hand-crafted shelves stand empty.

That's why JBFC is launching a Book by Book campaign to fill those shelves with 2,500 books. We'd like to raise $25,000 by May 30th, 2013 when we can have a grand opening for our new lending library. 

Students and local villagers will be able to check out books and expand their minds. This project will not only share the joy of reading with our 300 school children, but this could also help us impact illiteracy in a country where only 68% of the population can read.

Our friends at Eleni’s Cookies heard about our mission and decided to lend a bakind hand. They have custom-designed a line of beautiful cookies for JBFC. The cookies feature JBFC girl, Reka, taking a stand against poverty and designs patterned after African Kanga cloth.

20% of the profits from the JBFC cookie boxes will go directly to help stock our new library. So check another name off your Christmas list and give the gift of literacy to a young child in Tanzania all at the same time. Click here to place your order online or via the Cookie Concierge at 1.888.435.3647. First available ship date is Monday, December 17th.

With your help, cookie by cookie and book by book, we can change the world.

Happy Holidays!