Our Beginnings

Although founded as a nonprofit in 2021, the Collins/Geigert family has been personally supporting the education of young people who have no means of continuing education beyond 8th grade, for several years.

The Collins/Geigert World Education Foundation is a non-profit foundation promoting education for qualified young people primarily on the African continent. CGWEF offers grants and scholarships on a selective basis to promising secondary and college level students who are orphaned, or from extremely poor single parent homes. All of our students have been recommended to us, based upon their desire to work hard, and be educated.

We Begin This Mission With Personal Help For Others

I was the first in my family of siblings and cousins to complete a university education. I became a teacher. One day I found out one of my students had been turned over to social services with bruises all over her body and was taken away from her parents. That night I came home and talked to my husband, who was in graduate school at the time, about taking this little child into our home.

Beginnings anchor

He thought that it might be better to wait and to really think about what we could offer abused children like this. However, because I had grown up in an abusive home, my heart went out to this little girl. I decided then and there, that if God opened the door for us to help others such as her, then that’s what we would do. And we did.

Over the years we took in ten other children whose lives were spiraling out of control for a variety of reasons, including: poor life choices, a parent on drugs or alcohol, or parents lacking in parenting skills. We were able to truly help all but two move forward in their lives.

On one of our trips to Africa, we met an orphan in Ethiopia who asked me to please take his photo. I had since become a professional photographer, and told him, yes I could take his picture but I could not give him the image unless he had an email for me to send it to. He thought for a moment and asked if I would be in the same area the following day. I told him yes, and he said that he would have an email for me the following day. While talking to him that next day I asked him why having his picture was so important to him. It turned out that he needed the image so that he could send in the forms necessary for him to take the 10th grade national exam to be able to get into grades 11 and 12. That really opened our eyes, both to the dedication this young man showed to furthering his eduction, but also to the need for poverty-stricken youth to have financial support in order to attend secondary school. That small hurdle of a photograph— which would be so simple to overcome for you and I— was a nearly impossible barrier standing in the way of that young man's continuing education, as it is for so many without means.

With just a little help and support, continued education becomes attainable and the possibilities of a better future open up for those who would otherwise have faced continued hardship. Please consider a tax-deductable donation to give hope to those without.