Many Hopes is an organization making a positive lasting impact in children’s lives, and in turn, the world – one country at a time. As founder Thomas Keown asks, why would you not? Their manifesto can give you reason to pause and wonder if you are doing the most you can to create positive change. The recent Discover Many Hopes gala fundraising event was filled with emotional anecdotes that moved attendees to donate tens of thousands of dollars, resulting in the organization reaching their financial target in record time, with their most successful event to date.

Caleb Clardy, Alice Callahan, Thomas Keown, Zachary Levi, Tracy Anderson, Zachary Waksal

The fourth annual fundraiser gala was hosted by actor and Tony Award nominee Zachary Levi and fitness and wellness entrepreneur Tracy Anderson. The event was co-chaired by prominent photographer Patrick McMullan, film producer and director Jeff Oppenheim, and Jeffrey Zarnow, an executive producer of The Global Citizen Festival in Central Park.

Many Hopes is a non-profit organization that rescues children from poverty, corruption and abuse in Kenya, then advocates for them in court and educates them to build future networks of leaders and influencers who will break the cycle of injustice. The gala event brought together 500 influencers to build a school for 900 children in Kenya – 100% of the proceeds will go toward the construction. Notable attendees to the gala included “Empire” actor Malik Yoba, “Gossip Girl” actress Alice Callahan, founder & CEO of Issa PR Viet N’Guyen, and NY Knicks player Lance Thomas, among others.

Sofia Vergara

AnnaLynne McCord

Previous celebrity supporters include Karen Elson, Sofia Vergara, Jessica Stam, Leighton Meester and AnnaLynne McCord.

HOMBRE: What made you create this organization and this event?
Thomas Keown: Growing up in Northern Ireland I witnessed political unrest and violence for a long time. I had a great sense of fairness or unfairness from a very early age. As I grew older I realized a better description for that feeling was justice and injustice. When I traveled to Kenya for a vacation I met a Kenyan journalist who was focusing his journalism on the oppression of the poor by the powerful. We became friends and he had a vision for change. Anthony Mulongo developed a long term vision of raising networks of children who suffered the worst, therefore they cared more about justice than anyone else because they suffered injustice. Anthony thought, imagine if we can raise generations of children who had the education in their heads and the confidence in their bellies with the network at their fingertips to match that desire for justice in their hearts.

I thought as an Irish guy living in America I can’t do what you can do in Kenya, but you can’t pay for it. I live in one of the most influential cities in the world, I can tell your story and people will want to use some of their influence to give a child somewhere else the chance to become an adult of influence. So I wrote about him and people responded and Many Hopes is the result. We united around two words. Cynicism and Hope. We were cynical with the impact of aid, but hopeful that there was a different way. We believed in the next generation and we thought, let’s raise them with the opportunity to do extraordinary things for justice.

H: When did the organization begin? 
TK: Anthony has been doing this for many years. The organization was founded officially in 2009 when it was all volunteers and part time, and then it became my vocation, my mission.

H: What do you wish to accomplish?
TK: We’re building one very large school right now to educate 900 children. This is not a charity school. This is a school you would send your children to. This is a school that costs 2.2 million dollars to build in Kenya. It’s a school that doesn’t just raise children to subsist, it’s a school that raises children to influence. We’re not in the business to raise a poor child to be a literate poor child, this is a school that teaches a child of extreme poverty to sit with anybody in twenty years and be able to converse and challenge because they feel they belong in this table as much as you do.

H: Why should people get involved and continue to donate?
TK: There’s probably no higher return investment that you can make than in the education of a child. The ripple effect that these children will have is immeasurable. For $4,200. we can rescue a child, educate a child for a whole year. That kid is going to be a future college grad, a leader.

H: The painful stories you told about the struggles of children at the gala were very moving, that’s what motivated so many people to donate.
TK: The estimate is that there are 2.6 million street children in Kenya. Kenya is not unusual. In many parts of the world things are much the same. Our hope is that we will perfect a model that other people in other places will replicate. We will have a functioning model comprising the rescue and housing of children, the educating at a school that we control, and the advocating for children in court that equips them to not just do mathematics and English, but to know when their rights have been abused and what to do about it. With those things working together we hope that people will come from other countries and say, can you do this in Nigeria, or in Honduras, or any other place. And we can say, we can’t, we don’t know those places, but you can. Here’s what we learned, adapt this to what you know and go do it.

H: Why is this your mission, why so important for you?
TK: There are people hurting in the world and we have the ability to stop it. There are people denied opportunity and we have the ability to provide it – how or why would you not? My favorite part of my job is not in Kenya where people do beautiful work, my favorite part of my job is in New York City, or Los Angeles, or London. What makes me passionate is the moving of resources from where they are to where they are needed. Helping people rediscover the joys of generosity is my passion. It feels good to give. We get the chance to offer the people who are succeeding at their job the chance to have social consequence to match their economic success.

H. Seems you raised the night’s needed funds in record time at the event; how do you feel about this year’s gala?
TK: This year’s gala was the single biggest success we ever had. It just shows the power of story and the desire people have to be a part of something that’s bigger than themselves. Many people in that room had never heard of us, but they heard a story and a vision that felt right.

For more information visit www.manyhopes.com

Lance Thomas, Thomas Keown (center), Malik Yoba, Zachary Levi – Zach Hilty

Julia Fehrenbach

Jean Shafiroff