Schools
Cupertino Student Wants to Help Students Worldwide
Justin Li, a 2011 Justin Perkins Sandlot Award winner, plans to establish a nonprofit organization to help underprivileged students all over the globe.
Some dream of small things; others make their dreams happen and make them grow.
Such is the case for one of the founders—Justin Li—of Kenya Dreams, a fundraising project started by Cupertino High School's class of 2010 to improve the learning environment of Nthimbiri Secondary School in rural Kenya. Li now plans to incorporate that fundraising project into a nonprofit organization, called Dreams for School, to benefit more underprivileged students around the world.
Li, who just completed his first year of college at the University of California-Berkeley, said he is collaborating with his friend, Lisa Nguyen, a De Anza College student, on the establishment of the nonprofit.
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"In addition to Kenya Dream, we'll have America Dream, China Dream, India Dream and more," said Li.
A business major with double minors in education and global poverty practice, Li explained that he and his former classmates at Cupertino High School chose Kenya to help, because their high school counselor, Chin Song, knew the principal of Nthimbiri Secondary School in Kenya and could make sure every penny of their donation would be used on the Kenyan students.
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According to Li, he and his then-classmates talked to Song about starting a charity project in 2006 after reading a San Jose Mercury News story that portrayed their generation as a selfish one.
"We were appalled by the article," said Li. "We decided to prove it wrong."
From then on until their graduation, Li and his then-classmates raised $75,000, which ended up helping two more schools in Kenya than Nthimbiri.
Kenya Dream continued on at Cupertino High School after the graduation of the class 2010, and it has since raised $20,000 more, according to Li.
In the meantime, Nithin Jilla of the same graduating class built a chapter of Kenya Dream at the University of California-Irvine.
Li said he didn't create a Kenya Dream chapter at UC Berkeley, but instead he often came back to Cupertino in his first year of college to work with Cupertino High School students on the original Kenya Dream.
For his remarkable contribution to Kenya Dream, Li won a this year without applying for it.
Li talked to Cupertino Patch on camera about how the award came to him as a surprise. and how he envisions Dreams for School. The video recording is attached to this article.
For more information about the 2011 Justin Perkins Sandlot Award winners, see Justin Perkins Sandlot Award 2011.
