Normally I don't ask for help, but today we have a situation. Every time you come to my channel and
watch one of my videos, I get a small fraction of a penny. It helps me do what I do. What you don't
know though is that I've been saving up those small fractions of a penny and we have $75,000 to
do something cool with. I say “we” because it's your views and your pennies that we're working
with. And you might be asking yourself, 'Hey Jerry, having an extra $75,000 doesn't seem like
much of a problem.' But it is. Let me introduce you to my uncle who can explain a bit more.
-[Philip] Hey. So, how's it going?
[Laughter]
Good?
-Good!
-Yeah, I think you all can tell we're related based on the haircut. Do I snap now?
-Yeah, I mean there are a couple of things we say first, but let's get started.
[Intro]
-Why am I holding this thing?
[Laugher]
-My desk has some weird things on it.
-My hands are just like wandering.
[Laughing]
-This is Philip. He came to school here in the U.S. about 15 years ago and was hosted
by my grandma. And ever since then he's been coming to all of our family reunions,
New Years Parties, weddings, all the important events. And I've known him most of my life.
-I was born in Kenya – born and raised. I came here to America about 15 years ago
to go to school. One thing that I've noticed being here in America is how
easy and accessible knowledge is. And this is in terms of libraries and books. As you all know,
knowledge is power. And especially if you think about the 3 basic needs which are food,
shelter, and clothing. The more knowledge you have, the more you are able to take
care of those basic needs easily, for yourself and also for your community.
-You've heard me say several times on my channel
that education can solve all of the world's problems.
-And education comes with knowledge. Knowledge is permanent. Once you
have knowledge it cannot be taken away - it stays with you forever.
-Which is why we have the exciting news that part of the $75,000 that you guys have given
us by watching our videos is going to be used to build a full size library in Kenya.
-So we've been working on this process behind the scenes for about 1 year now
and we're pretty far along in the process.
-Getting the land and building the library is going to cost us right around $50,000.
That $50,000, though, goes a really long way and this is the footprint
of the library that's currently under construction in Africa.
-The library's being built in Budalangi, which is where I'm from.
It's going to be the only library within a 100 mile radius.
-It'll be utilized by 10 elementary schools, 6 high schools, and 3 colleges. And of course,
the community which is around 7,000-10,000 people.
-10,000, yeah. So this is going to be a hub of knowledge within a
walking distance. So instead of going all the way to 100 miles distance,
it's going to be in the community and everyone will get access to it and it'll just be amazing!
-It's exciting. The part you see in yellow is going to be the library itself. And the
part in pink behind me is going to be an enclosed outdoor reading area.
Things are moving super quick. We've already started construction over in Kenya,
and I'm sure you've done the math in your head at this point, we started with $75,000,
the library costs $50,000, we have $25,000 left to fill it up with books. But,
$25,000 is also the price of building an industrial borehole for a water well that
would also service the entire community. It'll have a massive water tank and solar panels on the
top and kind of make the library a meeting place or a central hub for people to come hang out.
-You cant really learn when your basic needs are not met. And so right now we'll have the library and
we'll have the borehole, but we're not going to have books inside the library.
-Which is where you guys come in. You guys have already given us so
much by watching these videos. All of this is being made possible...and construction,
like I mentioned earlier has already started, but we need books. Down in the description of
this video there is an address in Orem, Utah where we will be collecting books to send
to Kenya to fill our library. But not just any books. Think of your favorite book growing up,
the one that kind of shaped who you are today. Not the Keto diet book on your shelf that
you've never read, but actual fun, entertaining, uplifting books that you really enjoyed reading.
-So most kids in Kenya, they first get access to books when they're in school.
So the first day of school, which is 6 years old. This library will provide an opportunity
for those kids to start reading and learning about books at the age of 2 all the way to
6. So we'll have programs like nursery rhymes and reading, and all those kinds
of things you do that help the transition to go to elementary school more prepared.
-It'll start them young because knowledge is power,
and it's nice that, you know, books don't require batteries.
-So English is one of the national languages in Kenya, but in schools,
English is the main language taught. Thanks to the British,
this has been going on for the last 100 years. It's a long story. We're not going to get into
that now. But in schools, everything's taught in English, so having books that
are in English will really help just push this advancement of knowledge to the kids.
-Because this is a community library,
we want everything. We want baby books, we want children's books, novels for teenagers,
we want textbooks, encyclopedias, educational research books – everything. The books I read
growing up shaped who I am today. Not so much grandma's cookbook. We don't need any of those.
-There's a quote that says “A reader lives 1,000 lives,
and a man who doesn't read lives only once.”
-Sending books here to Orem, Utah is actually pretty cheap. USPS has a service called Media
Mail which sends books cheaper than other packages. So make sure you ask for Media
Mail when you go to ship your books, or you can just order something directly from Amazon
or other online book retailers and send it to us at the address in the description.
-So to fill up the whole library we need about 12,000-15,000 books. We've already started the
process of construction and we're hoping that will be done by the end of the year.
-We have government approval for the import of the books. We really have been doing a lot of
work behind the scenes, but now it's your turn. We really don't have that much time since it takes
a while for international shipping, which means we really need all of the books here in the next
three weeks. It would be really embarrassing if we opened a library that had no books.
Philip and I will both be down there in Kenya for the library opening and
you can see all of your books on the shelves once we have them.
-So the idea of a library has been a dream of mine for quite some time now.
And I've had the privilege of getting a formal education in America. With your help we can turn
this around and provide the same knowledge to the people in my community. And this is going
to cause an infinite ripple effect because we'll have books in the library and people
can come and access them, and this knowledge is going to stay there for generations to
come. Thank you very much for your help, and we're hoping this is going to be a success.
-I'm looking forward to this one and it's all been made possible because
you guys are watching our videos...from the construction of the library, to the borehole,
now to the books. So send those as soon as possible. We have a very tight timeline to
finish this before the end of the year. So if everything goes smoothly by the end of
the year we will have a full size library up and running in Kenya. I'm excited.
-Thanks. Thanks again.
-Thanks a ton for watching, and we'll see you around...at the end of the year.