Sponsorship Isn’t for You
Unless you want to make real human connections — and not only with your sponsored child. Chris Grecco’s story is proof.
His relationship with ChildFund began in 2012, when he chose to sponsor a child from Uganda. He had no special connection to the country, he didn’t know anyone from there — until suddenly, he did, and that someone was named Henry.
Around the same time, Chris also got involved with a nonprofit organization called Soccer Without Borders, and in 2015, a trip to Kampala for one of its festivals presented the chance to visit Henry’s village, near Soroti, and meet him and his family for the first time.
A lot has happened since then. Soon after his return home, Chris began sponsoring another child, Mary, who lives near Henry. Chris had already been a supporter of the nonprofit microfinance company Kiva, and as his connection to Uganda grew, his giving gained more focus. “At this point,” he says, “I almost solely help people from Uganda [through Kiva].”
Chris also learned about another ChildFund supporter, a woman named Kristan from California who sponsors children in the same village, and the two struck up a friendship. When Kristan found out that Chris was planning another trip to Uganda, she asked him for a favor — to take some gifts to her sponsored children.
So when Chris returned to Uganda in January 2017, he had a lot on his agenda.
Accompanied by ChildFund staff members Moses and Rose, Chris first visited 13-year-old Henry and his family. “We sat inside and just talked and caught up,” Chris says. They communicated with the help of a translator, because though English is an official language of Uganda, there are 41 local dialects, and both Henry and Mary speak Ateso.
Henry’s family asked Chris lots of questions: about his family, his job, his hometown in Kentucky. Chris showed them a picture of his back porch covered in snow. “They can’t fathom … what negative 10 degrees Celsius feels like,” he says, laughing. They were also interested in the recent presidential election. Based on the news reported in their local newspapers, “They got the sense that there was a lot more turmoil than usual,” Chris says.
Henry himself isn’t concerned with political conversation just yet. Soccer is still his top priority, and his family says that sometimes his schoolwork slips a little bit for that reason. But Chris, for one, isn’t too worried — he says Henry’s just like most kids in that way. “I can relate,” he says, “I’d rather be playing soccer too!” Chris hopes to kick around with Henry someday, but during this visit it was too hot, especially for a guy who’d recently had a snow day.
The group then traveled to 12-year-old Mary’s village. Mary was excited to meet Chris for the first time, but her enthusiasm was subdued because, at the time of the visit, she had malaria. Still, she and her family were “extremely thrilled” to meet Chris, he says. “You get out of the vehicle and they literally run up to you and give you a hug!”
Chris talked and exchanged gifts with Mary’s family, including her older sister Asekenye who, since she speaks English, writes the letters to Chris on Mary’s behalf. Their family, like Henry’s, understands the importance of education. “[Mary] is very interested in school,” Chris says, “and they want to try to send her to private school.”
They’ll do all they can to get her the best education they can afford. Both Henry and Mary’s families work as farmers, but these days their livelihoods are severely threatened by the effects of climate change. “They really had not been able to grow anything last year,” Chris says, “and they were anticipating the same thing this year. They don’t know what they’re going to do. When we read things [about climate change] here, we know it’s not good, but it doesn’t affect us like it affects them. This is very, very real for them.”
But Chris is quick to make one thing clear: “Do they wish they had crops? Sure. Do they wish Mary didn’t have malaria? Sure. But nobody is sulking there. They’re really happy.”
And Chris is really happy too, to be a part of it all. After saying goodbye to Henry and Mary and their families, whom he has gotten to know well over the past five years, and after meeting Kristan’s sponsored children and delivering her gifts to them, Chris traveled eight hours back to Kampala — perhaps passing by the homes or small businesses of people he helps through Kiva. And for the next several days, he worked and lived with people who have become his good friends through Soccer Without Borders.
When he got home, he sent pictures to Kristan in California, and told his three kids about his trip, about Henry and Mary, about their families’ hardships and hard work and happiness. And it all started with the idea of sponsorship. “I’m this guy that lives in Lancaster, Kentucky, and I happen to be able to sponsor kids,” Chris says. “I wouldn’t give up that experience for anything.”
Story by Rachel Ringgold.
Photos courtesy of ChildFund Uganda and Chris Grecco.
