Flying Club gold card holders transform school in Kenya

For the next week the volunteers, who collectively have contributed over £34,000 from sponsorship and donations to the project, got up at 6:30 am to put their DIY skills to the test by building and decorating separate boys and girl’s dormitories, shower and toilet blocks, play areas, a kitchen garden, a solar water pump system and solar powered lights for the school.

The project ended with Richard joining over 600 local school children and VIPs at the opening ceremony at the Sekenani Primary School in the Maasai Mara in Kenya. Kenya’s Education Minister also came to meet the party and pledged 1 million Kenyan Shillings to the school The project was made possible by a collaboration between Sarova Hotels, Water For All, Watermark (the company that helps us with our events) and 10 Goldcard frequent flyer volunteers from our Flying Club.

The Flying Club members who started the week not knowing each other have now bonded as great friends and are planning reunions.

"I will cherish the time we spent together for the rest of my life. I laughed and cried with you all and those incredible kids. We came together as strangers and by the end of the week I would have given up my left ball for any one of you!"
Stewart Monk, Business Development Manager, Oracle

"Guys, it was good, it was real, it was real good - really miss you all - just don't feel right being back in London and I just can't get myself motivated to do work in the office, alas, hope to see you all soon...."
Amaresh Joshi, Vice President, JP Morgan

"The past week has been amazing – unforgettable memories for sure. Thank you to all of you!"
Jacqui Cooper, mum of 3.

"Virgin's hospitality was generous in the extreme(!) and it's probably fair to say the company has a brand new set of unpaid advocates for its services!"
Andrew Luck, Publisher

"I am so glad I was chosen to go on this trip because, it was a great experience and I managed to make a change , though it may be small in lives of these wonderful people. I met an interesting bunch of people as well and got to get to know a few flying club members and the wonderful flying club team."
Amanda Annan, Actress and Model

"…you are all very special people and I feel like I've gained a new family."
Emma Thompson, Emerging Markets, Cisco

"I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you personally and for giving me a week long memory I’ll remember for the rest of my life. No wondered Virgin is so successful when it has people like you representing the brand."
Jill McMillian, Merill Lynch

As the school has so much land and now a really good supply of water from their new solar pump, we are looking to send some experts to the school to see if there are certain crops that they could grow. This would help them to be more self sufficient and with a longer term view of growing enough crops to sell onto local game reserve lodges.

The classrooms and kitchen also need renovating/rebuilding.

A big thank you to the below Flying Club who not only raised a huge amount of money for the school but also worked extremely hard to give the children of Sekenani School a helping hand in making their futures a bit brighter.

Amanda Annan, Amaresh Joshi, Andrew Luck, Andy Reuthe, Emma Thompson, Jacqui Cooper, Jill McMillan, Mark Brazier, Stewart Monk and Sonal Kadchha.