Community Support for Rural Uganda
Community Support – Rural Uganda
About the Howard Crook Foundation
The Howard Crook Foundation, a 501(C)(3) organization, was formed to provide support for three NGOs located near the Kinyamaseke Trading Center in the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains in Western Uganda Africa. Many of the people in this area struggle to meet their daily needs. The NGOs have a multitude of goals that they’re trying to achieve, here are a few of the main ones:
Howard knows the members of these NGOs personally from his visits to Uganda over the past 28 years and has contributed as much as he could towards various causes over this period. He started contributing toward the education of young people, toward church building, school building and finally toward getting a supply of clean water for the community. Then between 2013 and 2018 a water system was built, designed by Howard and Karaybo Amos of KARCD, and then built by Amos, using funds provided by Howard. This water system that is now operated by Amos of KARCD, currently supplies clean water to over 2,000 people in the rural area.
In the past few years, two additional NGOs have been growing and developing. These have also been supported by Howard, his son Tom, and others. Now Howard realizes that the needs in this area are greater than he and Tom can meet on their own and thus the Foundation was formed as a 501(C)(3) organization so that they could seek additional help.
The NGOs we are currently supporting (in alphabetical order) are: AVTEC, KARCD, & RWOFCD.
Not-so-Brief Bio of Tom Crook
I was born and raised in Syracuse, NY and I moved to the Boston, MA area in 1996. I’ve lived in “the Boston area” for more than half of my life, I guess I’m a “Bostonian” now?
I’ve always had a love for wildlife, nature, and adventures of all sorts, which is part of what led to travelling to Africa (Uganda) for the first time, back in 2007. By this time my father (Howard) had travelled to Uganda several times & it was something that he really enjoyed sharing with his friends and family. The trip to Uganda in 2007 was a group of family & close friends, including my wife Marnie, and our 2 sons (Nate-6 & Alex-4 at that time).
During our trip to Uganda in 2007, I developed life-long friendships within the Western Ugandan community & consider myself one minor part of our extended family. Two things become very clear when you travel in the rural areas of Uganda & East Africa. (1) many people need some type of support their basic survival, (2) despite their great needs the people in these communities are so full of warmth & always greet you with a smile and kind words. (& if it’s me, they get a hug too, sorry 😉)
Howard Crook, Nancy & Gary Wilson, the Robinson Elmwood United Church community, myself and lots of our friends and family have been doing our best to support these wonderful people and communities for the past 25+ years. Support has been provided through many projects including: women’s health & social issues, the building of schools, multiple water projects (solar/wells/pumps), tuition & education expenses, agriculture projects, “putting walls & a roof” on a church, and even a fairly large and growing gravity-fed water system.
When we travelled to Uganda in 2022, we decided it was time to formalize our community support in Western Rural Uganda, leading to the creation of the Howard Crook Foundation, Inc. on February 27th 2023. Since the day we arrived back in the USA at the end of August 2022, we have been working on HCF, Inc. To start with it was on a weekly basis via meetings with NGO’s every weekend, the of course, this led to a full-time daily job or “labor of love”.
We welcome you into our growing “extended family”! If your situation allows, and you believe that you might share our goals and aspirations, please “chip in” where you can I personally invite you to join me/us in visiting “your new family” and the communities that we work to support. I guarantee it will be a life-changing event and an experience of a lifetime! ❤️
Brief Bio of Howard Crook:
I was born and grew up in the small town of Chester, Connecticut. I attended Brown University and upon graduation as an electrical engineer I took a job in the General Electric Light Military Department in Utica, NY. I worked for General Electric in Undersea Warfare for the next thirty years or so and retired from Lockheed Martin in 1994 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lockheed bought the GE Defense business a few years before I retired.
I moved to Syracuse, NY in 1963 and married Mary McGough. We lived in Syracuse until I retired. I have two sons, Michael, and Thomas.
Mary and I were very active in Habitat for Humanity prior to my retirement and in 1995 we joined a Habitat work group to travel to Uganda. While working there we became acquainted with Masereka Amon. Amon was working as a carpenter on one of the houses that we worked on. The chance meeting with Amon changed the course of my life for the next 28 years.
After Mary’s death in 2000 from ovarian cancer, I returned to Uganda to visit Amon and the area where we had worked on the houses. I returned in 2003, 2005, 2007and 2011 and in the meantime, I provided funds for Amon’s family to attend college. I also funded small projects in the area and introduced friends who also provided support. The big change came in 2013 when I teamed up with Amos, one of Amon’s sons, to provide gravity feed water for the community around their houses. I provided the funds, and some engineering advice and Amos did the hard work of completing the system in 2018.
In the years that followed, it became obvious that the need was greater than I could handle on my own and the Howard Crook Foundation was formed by my son Thomas. I contributed the name.
Brief Bio of Stacy Baar:
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and upon acceptance to the University of California, Berkeley for graduate school, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and have made the area my permanent home.
After a long career in marketing and sales I followed my passion and concern for wildlife and conservation and became a volunteer at the Oakland Zoo. Through my association with the Zoo I had the opportunity to go to Uganda in 2018 and participate in programs that benefit the wildlife and their habitats, as well as, the communities that border the national parks.
Through the associations I have made at the Zoo I was introduced to Tom Crook. I joined Tom on a tour of the humanitarian projects receiving financial support from the Howard Crook Foundation in Uganda. I was very impressed with the work being done by the program participants and inspired to offer assistance to the Ugandan people who face great challenges to improve their standard of living.
Brief Bio of Naomi Steiner:
I am a developmental behavioral pediatrician, originally from Switzerland, and have worked in academic hospitals in the Boston area for around 30 years. Recently, I became involved in a mental health project in Burundi, Africa.
As Tom explained to me the projects him and his father have been carrying out in Uganda, I quickly realized the impact they have by supporting the needs of the local population. This encouraged me to also become engaged in the HCF as a board member.
Brief Bio of Amanda Breen:
Originally from Tacoma, Washington, I am an attorney in Sun Valley, Idaho, where I own an immigration law firm. My law practice specializes in matching foreign workers with US companies experiencing labor shortages nationwide. It is so rewarding to work with people around the world to help them achieve their American dream.
Outside of work, I enjoy running, mountain climbing, and traveling the world with my husband David and our son Camden.
Thanks to David growing up down the street from Tom and Howard Crook, I “married into” the Uganda project many years ago. In 2007, David and I went with Tom and Howard to Kinyamaseke, Uganda, and we met many wonderful people who are still our friends. Since 2007, we have contributed to several community members in western Uganda to help further their education and careers. I am thrilled to now be on the board of the Howard Crook Foundation, and I look forward to leveraging the organization’s deep knowledge of the region to grow important projects that are already improving the lives of women, children, and entrepreneurs in the area.