Local students fundraising to build a library in Kenya

As the fall semester was winding down and the Horizon Middle School gymnasium was blasting tunes for a school dance, a small group of students was still hard at work in Benjamin Honeycutt’s classroom after school on Dec. 12.

Members of the club, the Kenya Read Project, were brainstorming different products to create with their 3-D printer, sell throughout the school and their community and different marketing strategies for their mission.

The funds generated from these products, which range from bookmarks, buttons, keychains and Christmas ornaments, will go toward a $14,000 goal to construct a library for the Twins Bright Academy in Eldoret, Kenya.

During his first meeting with the club, eighth grader Malichi Melvin said he joined this fall after learning about the real-world impact he could be a part of.

“I wanted an after-school activity and I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself,” he said.

The club started in 2023 and is part of Honeycutt’s nonprofit organization, Open World Cause, which works to provide educational resources to at-risk populations across the world. Since its founding in 2010, members have contributed to classroom materials, professional development and construction projects for partnering schools in Kenya and Nepal.

Honeycutt originally connected with an SAV school in Nepal during his senior year of high school for a legacy project, raising $6,000 for laptops, internet access and a furnished library. While he didn’t intend to continue this work beyond high school, he said that a monsoon washed away two of the SAV school’s classrooms and showed him that more work could be done.

“We just sort of thought that laptops are cool, but if these kids don’t have a school to go to, they aren’t really going to do much,” Honeycutt said.

He formed a student organization while attending the University of Kansas and established Open World Cause as a nonprofit when he began his teaching career.

Academic journals have reported the recent challenges Kenya has faced regarding access to public education. The Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies wrote that “high population and unsustainable utilization of resources” were specific challenges in 2012, while the East African Journal of Education Studies noted a lack of specialized training for preschool teachers and limited government funding for inclusive programs as recently as 2025.

While teaching at Woodland Park Middle School in 2023, Honeycutt and a group of his students started the Kenya Learning Project after Twins Bright students and community members expressed their desire for their own local library.

Following her time at the middle school, Paige Bissue now attends Lake George Charter School and continues working with the club. She said the work has provided her and others the chance to get out of their comfort zone and gain a more global perspective.

She explained that they’ve been able to meet with the students and teachers at the school over FaceTime calls to understand the impact of their efforts.

“Seeing their smiles and just knowing that what we do here, the more we do, the more we help them, it means the world to me,” Bissue said.

Although he has remained involved with Open World Cause since he began teaching, Honeycutt referred to himself as the “air traffic controller” for Kenya Read by managing logistics and expectations and supporting the students’ contributions.

Over the years, these contributions and initiatives have included web-designing for Open World Cause’s website, recording audio books to help teach the English language and developing affordable water filters for the schools’ communities.

Horizon eighth grader Ella Moore joined the club last year and has since worked to design and print posters, bookmarks and ornaments and partner with other school classes and departments.

She said her favorite part of the work, to date, is the feeling that she’s making a difference.

“I like helping people and when I’m doing things to advertise for Kenya Read, I feel a lot better,” she said. “Like, I’m helping these people get a library, and I guess I’m really proud.”

During the Dec. 12 meeting, Bissue discussed and planned for the club’s new fundraising campaign with the Horizon students over a virtual call. Dec. 29 marked 15 years since Open World Cause’s founding, and Kenya Read Project kicked off the “15 days and $1,500” campaign to secure the last bit of funding needed to construct the school library.

As for what comes after the library campaign, Honeycutt said this is also dictated by his students. Bissue said she intends to continue working with the club through college. Hoping to eventually become an OB-GYN, she added that these experiences affirmed her desire to help people through her work.

As for what future projects could entail, she hopes to establish a program to directly support children in need in Ghana.

“What’s so fun is that I never know what direction they’re going to go, but the direction continues to take that initial legacy into new places and that’s been so fun for me to see, and one of the most rewarding parts of my job,” Honeycutt said.