A first-of-its-kind festival on May 26 benefited two nonprofits that serve needy children in Kenya.
All the proceeds from the Peacock Festival will benefit the Jesse Kay Children’s Hospital and Happy Life Home for Abandoned Babies, a nonprofit serving needy children in Kenya.
The Peacock Festival was held on the 14-acre Five Dogs Farm in Amherst County owned by Cathy Kay, a nurse practitioner and adjunct faculty member at Liberty University.
The event featured vendors selling jewelry, photography, pottery and plants as well as artisan hand-spinning demonstrations, beekeeping, iron work with a blacksmith demonstration, animal petting and teaching about Belted Galloway cattle, American Alpine dairy goats, hair sheep, Great Pyrenees dogs, peacocks, guineas, chickens and turkeys.
Kay decided to hold the festival to raise money for the two organizations, which are close to her heart. The hospital in Kenya is named for her son, Jesse, who died in 2005 of leukemia at age 17.
Happy Life Home for Abandoned Babies was established 17 years ago by Peter Ndungu, 49, and his wife Faith, 51, after the Ndungus rescued two-day-old twin boys found in a plastic bag.
In the past 17 years, the couple has rescued more than 530 children and more than 300 have been adopted, Ndungu said. The nonprofit currently cares for about 250 babies.
“There’s a great need in Kenya,” he said. “There are about 2 million babies in Kenya who are vulnerable, orphaned and abandoned because of HIV and AIDS. We want to help as many as we can.”
The nonprofit ministry since has opened a school for the children and is working to raise money to build a high school in Nairobi. The home cares for infants until they are four years old and then they can attend the Happy Life Christian School until they are 16 years old. The school has more than 170 students.
The budget to maintain the home, school and hospital is $27,000 every month.
Lisa Altizer, a resident of Campbell County and friend of Kay’s, said she thinks Happy Life is a wonderful ministry and wanted to support them by attending the festival.
“I like farms and I like animals so it was a great opportunity to come out and support a great and worthy cause,” she said.
At the festival, the Ndungus educated attendees about their work. The couple spends about one month in the United States visiting churches and other organizations.
Before they started the ministry, Peter Ndungu began helping and feeding needy children on the streets when he was 17 years old.
“The passion came from the love of God and his example of helping the needy, supporting the weak and making life better for the weak,” he said.
Both Peter and Faith Ndungu grew up in poverty. Peter Ndungu did not wear shoes until he was in high school.
“From that background, I want to make another child’s life better,” he said. “God has been good to me.”
Kay, who has a doctorate in international health, said she always has been interested in what is happening in other counties.
When she found out about Happy Life and the conditions children were found in, she wanted to do more. Happy Life was established in 2002.
“These newborns are sometimes abandoned in hospitals after moms give birth, sometimes they are found in paper bags on the side of the road,” she said. “The mothers are poor and Nairobi has some of the biggest slums in the world. I am very passionate for these mothers. They don’t feel like they can care for a baby. I can’t judge them.”
Thanks to generous donors, Kay was able to help open a five-story hospital nearby to help aid the struggling children. She said the Kenyan government recently has given its approval for the hospital to begin conducting surgeries.
It costs $10,000 per month to run the hospital.
Kay said she hopes the festival will help raise enough money to keep the hospital, home and school running for another year.
“I really wanted to do this,” she said of the festival. “It’s the first one and you gotta start somewhere.”