Loretta Smith is a retired college administrator, who worked for many years at Southern Connecticut State University. Having met and befriended the Reverend Evalyn Wakhusama when Rev. Wakhusama was studying in the U.S., Loretta traveled to Kenya in 2004, following Rev. Wakhusama’s return after the completion of her studies. While in Kenya, Loretta explored ways in which her church community might become involved in addressing the plight of children orphaned or otherwise rendered vulnerable by AIDS in rural Western Kenya, where Rev. Wakhusama grew up. Out of this trip grew the concept for the Nambale Magnet School and WIKS-USA, Inc. An active fundraiser from the start, Loretta recruits donors and has, for 10 years, collected and redeemed bottles and cans as additional revenue for WIKS-USA (amounting to some $10,000 at 5 cents per item!). Loretta has visited NMS on four subsequent occasions: in 2009 for the school’s dedication, in 2011, in 2014 (when she and her husband accompanied four  Columbia University graduate students to NMS to demonstrate a model of successful education in a greatly impoverished area) and in 2016  to attend the first eighth grade class’s graduation ceremony. Loving children, Loretta volunteers weekly in the emergency pediatrics department at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

John Parker is a retired mechanical engineer. He and his wife, Marilyn, have lived in Kenya for several months each year for the past 13 years, where they support a number of programs that serve children and young adults. They are regular visitors to the Nambale Magnet School. John has served on the governing boards of several community and professional organizations and as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is an elder of the Noroton Presbyterian Church and a member of the Mission Team. He is a founding member of the WIKS-USA Board. John “is inspired by the potential for the Magnet School to transform the Nambale community.”

Tom Sansone is a licensed attorney in Connecticut, who has extensive fundraising and leadership experience in the non-profit sector. On a visit to Kenya in 2004, Tom was struck by the plight of impoverished, un- or under-educated children residing in rural areas. Through his friendship with Kenyan Anglican minister, Evalyn Wakhusama,  Tom undertook to help lead the effort to raise funds for the construction, equipping,  and operation of the Nambale Magnet School. Tom attended the groundbreaking ceremony at the school in August 2007, and returned to Kenya again in 2011. He is VP Resource Development & Donor Engagement of WIKS-USA, Inc., the Connecticut-based charity formed in 2009 to support the education of Kenyan children orphaned or left otherwise vulnerable by AIDS.

The Rev. Peter Stebinger has been involved with the Nambale Magnet School since its initial conception in 2004 during a trip to Kenya to visit the Rev. Evalyn Wakhusama. She had been working at Christ Episcopal Church in Bethany, CT during her time as a student at the Yale Divinity School. Since that time he has visited the school many times, often with other board members including: Loretta and Phil Smith and Tom Sansone and Ruth Beardsley. He is a passionate advocate for the schools fully sponsored OVCs and for the magnet school concept of mixing fee paying and fully sponsored students. He retired from fulltime parish ministry in 2011 and since then has served as a hospital chaplain at Hartford Hospital and part time priest in charge of congregations in Connecticut and Minnesota. He is currently semi-retired and resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife Caron moving from Connecticut in 2018 to be near his grandchildren.

Harvey Feinberg is professor emeritus of African History at Southern Connecticut State University (New Haven), where he taught for thirty-seven years. He began studying about Africa in the late 1950’s, a particularly exciting time. Professor Feinberg lived and pursued research in Ghana and South Africa (over 30 years). He was an official observer to the South African election (1994). He has also visited six other African countries, including Kenya. Mr. Feinberg has served on a number of commissions in the City of New Haven, including the Commission on Equal Opportunities. He was a vice-president of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, secretary for the Connecticut Coalition for History, and is currently a member of the board of the New Haven Museum and Historical Society. He is a United Way volunteer.

Philip Smith  is emeritus Vice President of Academic Affairs at Southern Connecticut State University, where he taught mathematics and held a number of administrative positions for nearly forty years.  Over the past decade he has served as a visiting professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York City.  Professor Smith has taught in Gambia, Chile, and China, and has visited the Nambale Magnet School on several occasions, once in the company of several graduate students from Teachers College.  He serves as a board member on the Southern Connecticut State University Foundation, the Elm Shakespeare Company, and New Haven’s  Community Soup Kitchen, which he also serves as Treasurer.

John Gill recently retired following a 36 year career in international banking. He spent the past 12 years at Standard Chartered Bank which has a unique footprint serving indigenous and trans-national clients in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. John has been active for several years on the Mission Team at Noroton Presbyterian Church which has had a long-standing connection with Evalyn Wakhusama and the Nambale Magnet School. John has traveled to Kenya and Tanzania twice with family members on Mission Trips including a 2017 visit to NMS. He came away from the visit with a profound admiration for the quality of the education being offered and the hope this generates for even the poorest children to accomplish great things in their lives. It is a privilege to take on a more direct role in continuing to aid the transformative work being accomplished by Evalyn and team.

Ruth Beardsley is a practicing attorney in Bethany, Connecticut. She has long been active in civic and philanthropic organizations on a local and statewide level. She became inspired to volunteer for the project after she visited Kenya in 2004, 2007 and 2011, and saw the difference the Nambale Magnet School is making in the lives of its students, their families and the surrounding community. Ruth and her husband were honored in 2014 for their philanthropic work, including for the school, as recipients of the Alexis de Tocqueville Herbert H. Pearce Award from the United Way of Greater New Haven.

Stephen Burt A graduate of Lehigh University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Mechanical Engineering.Steve currently acts as President of Burt Process Equipment, a manufacturer of water treatment systems and a fluid handling equipment distributor.Burt Process has a focus on Global Water Quality and works with Non-Profit and Non Government Organizations in a fund raising and engineering capacity to improve the quality of water to those in need globally as well as in disaster relief areas. Through his friendship with Evalyn Wakhusama and board members of WIKS USA, Steve joined the WIKS USA team in 2017 in a financial management capacity as Corporate Treasurer.