Dallas Mavericks point guard Kyrie Irving has donated $45,000 to a fundraiser that benefits children in two communities in West Africa.
The fundraiser was started by 22-year-old traveler Cameron Mofid, who initially set a goal of $5k to help build a new orphanage in Ghana and improve a school and fund supplies for its students in Nigeria.
This campaign has now topped $65,000 in donations to help children in the cities of Accra in Ghana and Lagos in Nigeria.
“I just got back from backpacking in West Africa and set up a GoFundMe to raise funds for a school in a slum in Nigeria and an orphanage in Ghana that I visited,” Mofid told DailyMail.com.
‘We raised over $10,000 in the first week with the support of over 200 people and the fundraiser started trending. Yesterday, I woke up to a $45,000 donation from basketball star Kyrie Irving.
“His donation will provide a water tank for the school in Nigeria (so they have access to clean drinking water) and also ensures that all 351 students in the school will have shoes, uniforms, books, and backpacks.”
Mofid says the difference in buying power between the United States and the two countries is about 10 times greater in Ghana and Nigeria – allowing him to meet his goals with only $5,000.
“We initially raised enough to buy the land for the new orphanage in Ghana,” Mofid explained to DailyMail.com.
“Kyrie’s donation should be enough to fund the entire building of the orphanage as well as a sports center for the kids.
“We already named a classroom in the school in Nigeria after him and the future sports complex at the orphanage in Ghana will be named after him as well.
“Kyrie’s donation means that we are now over 13x our initial goal of $5,000.’
In December, Irving donated $22,000 to help a young student stay enrolled at Howard University.
Destiny Thompson, a sophomore Civil Engineering major, started a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising $6,000.
Just two days after her post went live, Irving put forward the five-figure sum, leaving Thompson overwhelmed with gratitude and happiness.
For more on the campaign, and for updates on the project, visit the GoFundMe page.
