Photographer seeks sponsor to fly supplies to orphans

Sandra Denenga

Children eat with their hands from metal plates in a shack outside of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

Amy Tumbleston-Brown

A little boy stands by a trash-strewn waterway in Africa.

The Post and Courier

Eight boys who live in Senegal show off the few toys they have.

August is when Lowcountry weather is its hottest and heaviest, when kids run and splash in the ocean or a nearby pool to cool off in those last carefree days before school gets in the way. It's also the time when parents are scouring sales circulars for the best prices on school supplies.

Like those parents, local photographer Amy Tumbleston-Brown is gathering school supplies and clothing for children. She cares for them deeply and wants to ensure they have a bright future and opportunities the world over.

There's a significant difference, though: This brood isn't hers. They live thousands of miles away. She hasn't even met them.

But she will soon. Tumbleston-Brown pooled her local resources and as a result will donate nearly $20,000 worth of school supplies, food, medicine and clothing to orphans in Zimbabwe. The African nation has been ravaged by crop failure, drought, economic collapse and AIDS. Zimbabwe's rough political climate also contributes to its citizens' hardships.

"Zimbabwe is dealing with political unrest, massive unemployment near 95 percent, drought and famine, as well as a national health crisis and a population that includes nearly 1 million orphans," Tumbleston-Brown said in a statement.

She and her husband, Corey Brown, are dedicated to delivering the supplies by early next month. They organized a fundraiser two months ago and raised roughly $7,000, and Tumbleston-Brown got her alma mater, First Baptist Church School, to pitch in. The lower school donated over-the-counter medical supplies while the high school raised about $300 to go toward shipping costs.

Tumbleston-Brown is looking for a sponsor to help fly the 1,200 pounds of supplies to the country. She said nothing that goes by boat is guaranteed to get to Zimbabwe in time, so it must be by air.

"We're on a deadline to get it there by Sept. 5," Tumbleston-Brown said. "I don't want to mail it because I don't want to spend the money on shipping. I would much rather spend that money on the kids."

But why Zimbabwe? The photographer credits her compassion toward the country to a woman in Atlanta and a trip she went on when she was in college.

When Tumbleston-Brown attended the College of Charleston several years ago, she was taking African studies courses and decided to see the continent for herself. She went to Africa's western coast and was shocked at what she found.

"I thought I was really prepared for what I was going to see, but when we got there, I was taken aback by what I saw and the refugees from Sierra Leone. And yet the smiles they had ... ," she said, mentioning that they were grateful for everything they had. "When I left the west coast of Africa, I knew I couldn't leave what I saw behind."

A few years ago, a friend of hers put her in touch with Sandra Denenga, a Zimbabwe native who started Heart4Kids in honor of her mother, who took orphaned children into her home and cared for them. Denenga also lost her brother in the AIDS pandemic in Zimbabwe and wanted to help children such as the daughter her brother left behind.

Tumbleston-Brown was inspired by the story and has partnered with the Atlanta-based nonprofit with her own initiative, called Amy's Wish. Through them, she hopes to contribute to Heart4Kids' goal to build an orphanage outside the country's capital city, Harare, and to build a drinking water well and medical clinic and start outreach programs to feed the children and provide educational assistance.

The photographer wants to provide them with clothes made of sustainable materials such as bamboo and hemp. She also wants to give them hand-crank-powered laptops from the One Laptop Per Child program, written about in The Wall Street Journal last year.

"It was my personal commitment to make sure these kids get what they need, no matter what. ... Sometimes I wish we were all blind, so we couldn't judge based on color. We would touch each others' hands and help each other."

Reach Sophia Rodriguez at 937-5538 or srodriguez@postandcourier.com.