Deborah Triplett

Monique Boekhout | Optimist

Originally from Belgium, Monique decided to ring in her 50th birthday by running a marathon. Hearing about homeless children in Kenya, she chose to raise money while she trained to help create an orphanage to keep Kenyan kids off the streets
at night.

“My goal was $15,000,” she says, but the community embraced the project, and she ended up with $50,000—enough to build an orphanage. After completing the Chicago Marathon and traveling to Kenya to celebrate the orphanage’s opening, Monique was hooked. “(The kids) broke your heart,” she says. “They had lice, they smelled. Some of them had no clothes.”

Five years later, the orphanage cares for 98 children, and has grown into a nonprofit organization called the Kenya Orphanage Project (kenyaorphanageproject.org). Monique has increased the stakes—running a second marathon, competing in a triathlon, and even climbing Mount Kilimanjaro—to raise money for the orphanage and the children’s college educations.

~Aleigh Acerni