Inaugural Outreach Trip - 2020
In February 2020, VAN Community Outreach made a trip to Liberia to deliver an assortment of school supplies, clothes, and toiletries to over 3000 children, youth, and elderly in Grand Kru County. Over the six months of preparation, our organization successfully collected six barrels worth of goods to distribute to the people of Barclayville, Betu, Grandcess, and Sasstown. These four target areas were chosen due to their significance to members of VANCO and to the county of Grand Kru. Betu, Grandcess, and Sasstown are the ancestral homes of our board members while Barclayville acts as the capital city and epicenter of Grand Kru County.
During our week long trip, our team was able to provide:
• 3,027 students with an assortment of school supplies
• 96 packs of chalk, 100 chalkboard erasers, and other teaching supplies for school officials
• 72 bars of laundry soap were given to the elderly
• A barrel of clothes, shoes, and soccer balls to each of the four areas
• A cookout lunch for the children, students, and elderly at each of the four areas
• Medical supplies and $100 cash provided for generator fuel were donated to the Rally Time Hospital of Grandcess
Throughout the trip, our organization met with community leaders, school officials, and elders of each township to assess the needs of each community. Through these meetings and our personal assessments, our organization identified what issues we wanted to tackle in our near future. The first was the need of new canoes in Betu. Betu was our first stop and in order to reach the township one must cross the Gbatu River. When our team arrived, only one canoe was available cross the river. The old canoe only had enough space to fit three people, including the navigator, and had no seats available. This made the crossing of our team and supplies not only inefficient but uncomfortable. The limited travel accommodations would also deter people from entering and leaving the township as well as make the journey difficult for the elderly and the disabled. To remedy this issue, VANCO plans to construct a new, larger canoe for Betu.
The second issue was the need for each school to have a designated space for housing books. VANCO had received a large donation of books prior to the Outreach Trip and wanted to make arrangements with Grand Kru County school officials to send the shipment to Liberia. However, our team found that most of schools only had small reading corners where their humble collection of books sat on the floor. In order to create a space able to accommodate these books, VANCO decided to establish public libraries in each of the four areas to the benefit of the students of surrounding schools.
The final issue we found during our trip was the need of a stable, backup power supply for Rally Time Hospital of Grandcess. The night we stayed in Grancess, we alerted that hospital lost power and ran out of fuel for their gas generator. Our team was lucky enough to have $100 to provide to the hospital which allow the doctors to complete an emergency cesarean section surgery that night. However, our organization wants to provide the hospital a portable solar generator to give them more power supply options, diminish their dependence on gas, and prevent emergency situations from happening again.
Overall, our team had successful trip to inaugurate our outreach efforts by serving 3027 students and 19 schools, Rally Time Hospital, and the elderly!
Summer Phonics Reading Program
VAN Community Outreach is happy to announce the success of its 2024 Summer Phonics Reading Program!
This free program focused on strengthening the reading fundamentals through phonics and was available to students from K-1 to 10th grade. This is the 2nd year of the program and it ran for 3 days a week from August 2nd thru 23rd. DVD's were sent to the libraries to provide an engaging method of teaching phonics to the students. Snacks were also provided to students each day. This resulted in over 600 students attending the reading program per day to learn phonics across our 5 libraries in Barclayville, Betu, Grandcess, Sasstown, and Kanweaken. St. Kizito Library in Kanweaken even held a soccer game for the students to commemorate the end of the program!
Thanks to our donors who sponsored the reading program in Betu, Grandcess and Kanweaken. We also want to thank the schools, students teachers and everyone, who made this Program successful. We will continue to hold phonics lessons through our book clubs which meet every day throughout the school year.
The Betu Community Center Project VAN Community Outreach plans to start the development of a community center in Betu, Grand Kru County, Liberia.
Betu is a small town in Southeast Liberia that is hard to access due to the physical barriers that one must overcome in order to reach the town. After driving 3 days from the border town of Sasstown, one must take a canoe to cross the Gbatu River before they can enter the town of Betu. VANCO has been visiting and aiding Betu since our initial outreach trip in 2020. Since then, we have provided the town a new, 8-seat canoe with life jackets, and established the Betu Library. As thanks, Betu offered 17 acres of land to VANCO in 2024. With this land, VANCO plans to develop the Betu Community Center!
The Betu Community Center will become the new home to the VANCO Betu Library which is currently held at Betu Elementary and Junior High School. Unfortunately, the spare room the school offered to house the library is too small to even place a table for the students to sit and read. Despite this limitation, the library is still in high demand and frequently used by over 300 students. The land for the community center is across from the Betu Elementary and Junior High for easy access to the students. The library within the center will have a seating area, computer lab, check-in counter, and bathrooms. The center will also have a large hall to house indoor activities for use by the students during the tropical rainy season which runs from April thru October. The hall will also be rented out to host community events and meetings.
In total, the development of the Betu Community Center will cost $53,000. We are currently soliciting for Phase 1, the laying of the foundation, which will cost $6000. Phase 2 will be raising the building. Phase 3 will be raising the roof. Phase 4 will be the installation of windows, doors, a water tower, and solar panels. The people of Betu will assist with the labor.
Kindly join us in making a difference in the lives of the children of Betu. We solicit your donation which will enable the students to have a library where they can sit, read, and conduct research in a spacious room with plenty of desks and chairs. All donors will be honored in the library.
Please review the rest of the website to see the projects and accomplishments we've made since our start in 2020. VANCO currently has 5 libraries in 5 underserved communities in Liberia: Barclayville, Betu, Grandcess, Kanweaken, and Sasstown. These libraries serve 36 schools and over 7000 students.
Betu Canoe Project - 2021
VAN Community Outreach provides a newly built 8-seat canoe and 8 life jackets to Betu, Jloh District, Grand Kru County.
The Township of Betu is found along the south-west coast of Grand Kru County. Because Betu is surrounded by two rivers, the Gbatu River and the Dougbo (Droh) River, travel by canoe is vital to its inhabitants. However, when VAN Community Outreach travelled to Betu in 2020, we found the township’s state of travel very limiting - being an old canoe with the space to fit two passengers and a paddler. Even our small party of three required several trips to cross the Gbatu River with our barrel of outreach supplies. Imagine the amount of trouble large parties would have, such as during the annual pilgrimage to Betu? Not only was the canoe small but uncomfortable. In the absence of seating, passengers had to squat on the floor of the canoe and hold onto the sides to keep their balance through the coursing river. This made the journey difficult for the elderly and disabled.
In order to address these issues, VANCO commissioned the construction of a new canoe for the township of Betu. This canoe comes with eight seats and eight life jackets for safe, comfortable, and efficient travel across the Gbatu River. The canoe was constructed by local artisans and presented to Betu on June 18th, 2021.
A special thank you to our supporters whose donations paid for the life jackets: Natina Nimene and Wanetta Shannon.
Grand Kru Library Initiative - 2022
VAN Community Outreach is proud to announce the successful launch of our Grand Kru County Library Initiative with the establishment of four libraries in Liberia from March 10th - 13th, 2022. The schools we collaborated with include: Betu Elementary and Jr. High School (Betu), P.G. Wolor High School (Grandcess), St. Paul Elementary and Jr. High School (Sasstown), St. Peter Claver Elementary and Jr. High School (Barclayville). These libraries will supplement the education of the 19 schools within the surrounding areas which consists of over 4000 students and more than 100 teachers.
The Grand Kru County Library Initiative began in September 2019 when we were given an overwhelming donation of books from City Gate, Inc of Washington, D.C. through one of our board members. We had hoped to share these resources to the schools of Grand Kru County, however during our 2020 Outreach Trip we found that there were no school libraries to house the books in the County. Upon this discovery, our organization made a concerted effort to establish the first public libraries in Grand Kru County to enhance the educational opportunities available to the students of these underserved communities. Over the next two years, VAN Community Outreach was able to amass over five hundred cases of books and resource materials, ten barrels of educational supplies, nine barrels of clothes, four computers and laptops, and a six-foot box of medical supplies and equipment for Rally Time Hospital (Grandcess). This was only possible through the support of our friends, family, and the public organizations that believed in our cause. After filling a forty-foot container, our supplies were shipped from the Port of Baltimore, MD on December 10th, 2021.
Our two-person team arrived in Monrovia, Liberia on January 28th, 2022 and ultimately stayed for eight weeks to complete this project. During this time, our team had to navigate Liberian customs to clear our supplies from the port; coordinate with the County Education Officer, Education Secretariat, and principals of each of these four schools, to develop their respective library; and worked with Liberian artisans to develop high-quality bookshelves, posters, and t-shirts. After sorting out the supplies, our team took a four-day trip to transport our books from Monrovia to Grand Kru County by cargo truck. The county roads were not easy to say the least. Our cargo truck actually got stuck in a puddle of mud for two days! Despite all the challenges along the way, we finally arrived in Betu on March 10th, 2022 to establish the Dr. Sean and Nancy Hunt Library in Betu Elementary and Jr. High School. Over the next three days we would travel to Sasstown, Barclayville, and Grandcess to establish the John Wilmot Wleh Nimene Library, the Rev. Fr. Thomas Dominic Donohue Library, and the VAN Community Outreach Library, respectively.
The name of each library was given with intention. The Dr. Sean and Nancy Hunt Library of Betu is dedicated to the Hunt’s, a couple whose timely and extremely generous donation defrayed the majority of our international freight costs. Their gift allowed our supplies to be shipped to Liberia on schedule. The Rev. Fr. Thomas Dominic Donohue Library is dedicated to the late Fr. Donohue who served the Barclayville Community as a Society of African Missions (SMA) Missionary priest until the time of his passing. Click the link to learn more about his story (http://defunts.smainternational.info/fr/necrologe/2112-le-pere-dominic-donohue). Finally, the John Wilmot Wleh Nimene Library of Sasstown is dedicated to our founder’s late father, who served Sasstown Territory as Superintendent over ten years, developing roads, airstrips, as well as facilities for education, administration, electricity, and telecommunications. It was during his tenure as Superintendent that our founder lived in Sasstown, Grand Kru County, which berthed her passion for this community and matriculated into the establishment of VAN Community Outreach and its dedication to Grand Kru County.
We would like to give a huge thank you to our Executive Director, Veronica Nimpson, for spearheading this project with unwavering fortitude. Thank you to our Board of Directors for their assistance in coordinating this initiative and offering financial support. Thank you to all of our donors for providing the books, resources, and funds needed to cover our freight expenses and furnish the libraries with bookshelves and magazine/newspaper racks. Finally, thank you to everyone on the ground in Liberia who supported us throughout our trip!
Together, we can continue to make a difference in the lives of the children, youth, and elderly of Liberia!
Library Initiative - 2024
VAN Community Outreach (VANCO) is proud to announce a successful trip to Liberia for our 2024 Library Initiative, from February 17, 2024 to March 21, 2024. Our three-person team arrived in Monrovia, Liberia on February 21, 2024 and stayed in Liberia for 4 weeks to accomplish the following:
• A 5th Library was opened at St. Kizito Elementary School in Kanweaken, River Gee County. In total, VANCO’s 5 libraries house over 16,000 books, servicing 7000 students and 36 schools across Grand Kru County and River Gee County.
• Purchased two full sets of West African Examination Council (WAEC), West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), and Liberian standardized textbooks for Betu and Grandcess.
• A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the construction of a Community Center in Betu. The people of Betu donated 17.5 acres to the VANCO, which we chose to build a new center to house our library in Betu.
• The “VANCO Library” of P.G. Wollor High School in Grandcess was renamed to the “Philip Wreh and Beatrice Munah Nimpson Library” in the dedication to the parents of Dr. Matthew N Nimpson, VANCO Chairman of the Board, who were born and supported Grandcess throughout their lives.
• 6 barrels of clothes, shoes, and school supplies were distributed to the students and teachers in all of the 5 areas VANCO serve: Barclayville, Betu, Grandcess, Sasstown, and River Gee.
• 80 elderly receive a gift of toiletries.
• Some medical supplies were given to the Rally Time Hospital, Grand Kru County only referral hospital which service over 65,000 persons.
VANCO initially established four libraries throughout Grand Kru County in 2022 to aid the 20 schools, 4000 students, and more than 100 teachers within the County. These libraries are located at Betu Elementary and Jr. High School (Betu), P.G. Wollor High School (Grandcess), St. Paul Elementary and Jr. High School (Sasstown), St. Peter Claver Elementary and Jr. High School (Barclayville). However, since the opening of these libraries in 2022, our team has not come back to Grand Kru to see the libraries in operation. Therefore, VANCO planned to return in 2024 the review the functionality of our libraries and supplement the staff and students with additional resources.
VANCO purchased 16 computers for our libraries to begin a Computer Literacy program in each of our 5 libraries. VANCO also purchased 5 sets of West African Examination Council (WAEC) standardized textbooks to meet the direct needs of the students. Liberian students undergo nationwide standardized testing based on the content of the WAEC standardized textbooks. However, access to these textbooks for the students is limited outside of class due to the high cost of these textbooks. On top of school fees, families would have to pay $680 over the course of their child’s education to own the full Aki-Ola textbook series. Having these textbooks available in the libraries removes that economic barrier which allows them to review and practice material at their own pace, learn concepts ahead of class, and ask deeper questions during lecture to ultimately have a more enriching learning experience.
Our team initially scheduled the 4-week trip to Liberia spending the first 2 weeks in Monrovia coordinating with staff and organizing our supplies. The final 3 weeks would be spent interview distributing our supplies to the five communities in Grand Kru and River Gee County. However, due complications with our shipper in Liberia, our supplies arrived to Grand Kru County 2.5 weeks late, leaving us only 3 days to drop off supplies. During this delay, our team met with Grand Kru schools and our library staff to assess the successes and shortcomings of our library’s effectiveness, the VANCO Book Club, and our 2023 Summer Reading Program.
Once the supplies arrived, our team raced through Grandcess, Betu, Sasstown, Barclayville, and Kanweaken to drop off supplies and meet with staff. The “VANCO Library” of P.G. Wollor High School in Grandcess was renamed to the “Philip Wreh and Beatrice Munah Nimpson Library” in the dedication to the parents of Dr. Matthew N Nimpson, VANCO Chairman of the Board, who were born and supported Grandcess throughout their lives. VANCO established its fifth library, “The St. Kizito Library” at Kizito Elementary and Junior High School in Kanweaken, River Gee County. This library will be available to the 16 schools within River Gee County. The St. Kizito Library is VANCO’s first library outside of Grand Kru County and indicates our plan extend our outreach to the underserved communities throughout Liberia. VANCO also held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction the VANCO Multipurpose Community Center in Betu. The people of Betu granted 17.5 acres of land to VANCO in 2023 to support the city and its educational efforts!
Moving forward, we plan to compete Phase II of the Library Initiative by providing our 16 computers to our 5 libraries. These computers were shipped from Frederick, MD in November 2023 and set to reach Monrovia, Liberia in January 2024. Unfortunately, due to issues with our international shipper, the computers had yet to reach the country by the time we our team left Liberia on March 22, 2024. We also plan to continue to our Annual Summer Reading Program starting July 24, 2024.
We want to thank all of our donors, the VANCO Board of Directors, Library staff, the teachers and students and general community who are contributing to the success of this Library Initiative. Together, we are empowering the students to learn, read about the world and other cultures. One cannot go wrong with education, because this is the only thing no one can take away from you once obtained. Thanks for your time and support!
Summer Phonics Reading Program
VAN Community Outreach is happy to announce the success of its 2024 Summer Phonics Reading Program!
This free program focused on strengthening the reading fundamentals through phonics and was available to students from K-1 to 10th grade. This is the 2nd year of the program and it ran for 3 days a week from August 2nd thru 23rd. DVD’s were sent to the libraries to provide an engaging method of teaching phonics to the students. Snacks were also provided to students each day. This resulted in over 600 students attending the reading program per day to learn phonics across our 5 libraries in Barclayville, Betu, Grandcess, Sasstown, and Kanweaken. St. Kizito Library in Kanweaken even held a soccer game for the students to commemorate the end of the program!
Thanks to our donors who sponsored the reading program in Betu, Grandcess and Kanweaken. We also want to thank the schools, students teachers and everyone, who made this Program successful. We will continue to hold phonics lessons through our book clubs which meet every day throughout the school year.
2026 Projects
Information coming soon!
