BALDWINSVILLE — When planning her itinerary for her August 2022 trip to Africa, Danielle Osier-Tatar penciled in a request from her friend Kevin Candee: Would she be willing to stop by St. Menas Orphans and Vulnerable Children’s Home in Uganda and check on the progress of the orphanage’s kitchen renovation?

“I had planned to go to Africa, like many people do, to go on safari and go gorilla-trekking. I did, and those things were amazing,” Osier-Tatar said. “But what I wasn’t prepared for was the way the people of Kenya and Uganda captured my heart.”

Candee and Osier-Tatar both grew up in Baldwinsville. Through his work with Aqua Energie, Candee made frequent business trips to Uganda and began raising money for the orphanage in 2019. Osier-Tatar, who lives in Nevada, followed Candee’s efforts on Facebook, and when she saw St. Menas for herself earlier this year, she was moved to donate.

“Seeing their plight and seeing the situation that they find themselves in … you just cannot come away from Africa without feeling compelled to help,” she said. “It was a huge reset for my way of thinking about the world.”

To date, Candee and his network have raised over $21,000 for St. Menas, which is located in Mityana, about an hour and a half outside the capital city of Kampala. The funds have built bathroom and shower facilities for the 130-plus students living there, and the kitchen project is about two-thirds done, according to Osier-Tatar.

“They have no tables; they have no chairs. Up until now, the children had a place that was sort of like a small chicken coop and they built a brick fireplace in there [to cook],” Candee said.

Children and orphanage staff sit on the ground to eat.

“That’s okay when it’s sunny, but half the year it’s rainy season,” Candee said.

The women in charge of preparing the students’ meals must endure inclement weather and the hazards of cooking over an open flame. The next phase of fundraising, Candee said, will provide wood-burning stoves, sinks, furniture and kitchen utensils for St. Menas.

Candee, who now lives in North Carolina, is opening several business ventures in the hopes of providing a stable revenue stream for St. Menas. His wife opened a fitness center, and he plans to start a brewery. The Candees are also building a resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Finding a steady source of income for the orphanage is difficult. St. Menas owns a farm about 10 km from the orphanage, but their vehicle broke down so they cannot travel to the farm to care for crops. There is a small patch of farmland at the site of the orphanage, Candee said, which supplements the children’s diet of mainly rice. A local farmer hosts groups of children for periods of time to work on his farm in exchange for produce.

Once the kitchen is complete, St. Menas’ next goal is to build better classroom facilities with whiteboards and internet access. Then, the school would be able to take on area students of greater means whose families could pay tuition.

Candee has taken books and other items to Uganda on his business trips there, but shipping items to the country is very costly. Osier-Tatar found that out when she looked into sending supplies from the U.S.

“Getting goods there is incredibly expensive,” Osier-Tatar said. “People are starving to death and there’s no safety net like there is here. There’s no food banks, there’s no free lunches.”

Both Candee and Osier-Tatar said they don’t want to fall into the trope of “white saviors” who swoop into underserved communities and dictate how their donations should be used.

“I’ve spent the last 40 years [traveling] there so I know a lot of [their plight], but I can never know it like they do,” Candee said.

Osier-Tatar said she has networked with Ugandans who want to improve access to sex education and contraception, and she is letting them lead the way when it comes to putting those ideas into action.

“I’m trying to really hear what people are asking for,” Osier-Tatar said.

While she witnessed profound poverty in Africa, Osier-Tatar said she was impressed by the spirit of the people there.

“They have a sense of community and belonging. They work together because they have to,” she said.

To donate to the St. Menas kitchen renovation, visit gofundme.com/f/ha5kjj-vulnerable-children-of-mityana. For updates and more information, follow facebook.com/StMenasOVC.