Kalamazoo area students headed to Sierra Leone: Urban Youth for Africa program taking 10 this year
Fritz Klug, Kalamazoo Gazette | August 3, 201o

When 19-year-old Howard Hughes was in Sierra Leone last summer, he met a young man named Santigie, whose sandals would fall off whenever he ran. Hughes gave him a pair of Adidas.

“He looked like I gave him a million dollars,” said Hughes, a 2009 graduate of Kalamazoo Central High School who now attends Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo. “I didn’t think twice about it.”

Hughes was one of nine Kalamazoo Public Schools high school students who went to Sierra Leone last summer on the first trip by Urban Youth for Africa, a program operated through the Kalamazoo Deacons Conference.

On Thursday, another group will be traveling to the war-torn country to volunteer and bond with other Sierra Leone teens. They will return Aug. 23. Ten high school students or recent graduates, six adult chaperons, and one student leader are going on the trip. (Read the full article)