The World Orphan Fund

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The World Orphan Fund

The World Orphan Fund provides funding to orphans and those who care for them. With no staff or overhead, 100% of donations directly benefit orphans.

The World Orphan Fund is an all-volunteer charity where 100% of donations are spent directly on behalf of emergency and transformational funding for orphans around the world. Programs include wells and clean water, medical care, vocational training, housing/therapy for special needs children (both mental and physical), teachers, medical equipment/surgeries and transition programs. Visit www.theworldorphanfund.org to learn about our work.

08/28/2026

Wednesday morning, a text message arrived from Mary Himiri at Nuru Orphans Centre in Tanzania.

“Thanks GOD we rescued all the children and all caregivers. We are okay.”

Those were the words that mattered most.

A fire had swept through the girls' dormitory at Nuru, home to 43 abandoned and orphaned children. No child was hurt. No caregiver was hurt. But the dormitory was destroyed, along with both food storerooms and everything inside them.

We know Nuru well. We visited two years ago, when the children greeted us with singing and we spent the day holding babies and getting to know the people who care for them. Some of these children have lived at Nuru since infancy. Those without parents even take Nuru as their last name.

It is home.

Seven girls were there when the fire happened; thirteen others were away at school. That first night, the seven slept on mattresses borrowed from the boys' dormitory and laid on the floor of the babies' dormitory.

And there was no food.

Mary sent us a list: rice, maize, beans, cooking oil, flour, sardines, diapers, baby wipes and other basic necessities. The cost was $1,788.

Less than four hours after we learned about the fire, our board had approved emergency funding and the money was on its way to Tanzania.

Then something wonderful happened.

The people around Nuru began showing up.

A tuk tuk arrived carrying mattresses. Neighbors brought food and clothing. And then they went to work. By nightfall, every piece of rubble from the fire had been cleared away.

People who didn't have much themselves brought what they could, and did what they could.

The photographs Mary sent afterward looked very different from the ones she had sent that morning. There was still a dormitory to rebuild. But now there were mattresses. Bags and boxes of food. Piles of clothing. And where the rubble had been, there was a cleared space and a community surrounding these children.

And we learned something else. As we began looking at what caused the fire and what needed to happen next, it became clear that we shouldn't simply repair the damaged wiring. We need to make the entire orphanage safer.

So we are going to rewire all of Nuru.

The cost is just over $1,028.

There is still much more ahead. The girls' dormitory needs to be rebuilt. Twenty girls still need their room back.

But today the children are safe. They have food. They have mattresses and clothing. Their neighbors showed up for them.

And so did you.

Thank you for making it possible for us to be there when they need us most.

08/14/2026

What does it take to feed 58 children?

It takes 4,125 kilograms of beans, bought from families in the community and stacked in a storeroom to last the year. It takes 557 kilograms of maize, ground week by week into flour. It takes 62 loaves of bread and 15 trays of eggs in a single month. Cabbage, tomatoes, bananas, passion fruit, pineapple. Dried fish. Sixty kilograms of meat.

It takes a caregiver standing over a wood stove, stirring one more pot.

At St. Jude Children's Home in northern Uganda, that is the daily work behind caring for 58 children, 24 of them living with a physical or intellectual disability. St. Jude provides a home, education and medical care while its social workers work toward something even better whenever possible: finding a relative who can safely welcome a child back into a family.

But caring for children is about more than what goes into the storeroom or onto their plates.

In March, the children and their caregivers left St. Jude for a day together at a community park. They shared a meal, colored pictures, played and laughed.

For a day, there were no labels in these photographs. No disabilities. No children living in an institution. Just children surrounded by people who care for them, having the kind of day every child deserves.

Your giving helps put food on their plates every day. And every once in a while, it helps give them a day like this.

Thank you.

08/07/2026

Bumala, Kenya.

They burst into their newly renovated bedrooms and ran from bed to bed. They touched the fresh sheets, admired the bright walls, and couldn't stop smiling as they chose where they would sleep. The joy in the room was impossible to miss.

That's what happened at New Creation Children's Home after our partners at Manna Ministries completed the renovation with the support of World Orphan Fund donors. Worn, tired bedrooms were transformed into bright, welcoming spaces. New beds and mattresses replaced old ones, each made up with fresh sheets and a comfortable place to rest.

Watching the children, it was impossible not to smile. They weren't talking about the paint or the new furniture. They were simply overwhelmed that someone had prepared a room just for them.

Most of us take our bed for granted. We simply expect it to be there at the end of the day. But for children who have already endured more than any child should, a clean bed and a peaceful room mean so much more. They quietly say, You are loved. You matter. You are worth caring for.

As the excitement settled, everyone gathered around a hot meal together. It was a chance to celebrate not only the renovation, but the smiles that had filled those rooms all afternoon.

Tonight, those same children will climb into the beds they claimed with such excitement.

What began with laughter will end with peaceful sleep.

Thank you for making that possible.

07/31/2026

In Honduras, existing on paper isn't guaranteed.

Our Youth for Honduras program prepares young people for adulthood through a national life-skills curriculum, post-high-school scholarships and mentoring, and our I-Exist Initiative.

Many children who enter children's homes have no birth certificate. Without one, they can never get a national ID.

No ID means no access to education, legal employment, or healthcare. It can even mean jail time, because carrying identification is required by law. A routine traffic stop can turn into weeks of detention over paperwork that was never the child's responsibility in the first place.

Through I-Exist, we're helping change that. The three siblings above just received their official identification. For the first time, doors to education, healthcare, employment, and so much more are finally open to them. Just as importantly, we’re working directly alongside the Honduran government to help fix the system itself, so fewer children will face these barriers in the years ahead.

Every child matters. Every child deserves to exist, not just in spirit, but in the eyes of the law. Because identity is more than a piece of paper. It’s the first step toward a future filled with dignity, opportunity, and hope.

Thanks to our amazing donors who make programs like this possible.

07/24/2026

One of the greatest privileges of our work is that, every once in a while, we get to celebrate a story reaching its next chapter.

This month, in Guatemala, the Arreola family completed three years in our Walker Center's Adoptive Family Support Program.
At the heart of this story is one remarkable decision. Alongside their two biological daughters, they welcomed four girls who had once faced the very real possibility of growing up in an institution instead of a home.

Love was always there. But love alone isn't always enough to heal the wounds trauma leaves behind.

Over the past three years, the Walker Center's psychologists and therapists walked alongside this family as they learned to understand trauma, strengthen emotional connections, navigate difficult behaviors, and discover the simple joy of being together as a family.

Today, four girls who once faced an uncertain future are growing up surrounded by parents who have made a lifetime commitment to them.

One story, in particular, reminded us just how much hope can change a life.

Before Zaida joined the Arreola family, the Walker Center was already working with her while she was still living in a residential care home. She had hemiparesis that severely limited movement on the right side of her body. Many believed she would never walk.

Today, she is in school. She runs, plays, learns, and continues to overcome challenges that once seemed impossible.

That transformation belongs to many people: a little girl who kept fighting, parents who never stopped believing in her, Walker Center professionals who refused to give up, and our amazing donors who make it all possible.

07/19/2026

Her name is Iryna Bass.

For the past eleven days, she has been the voice between two worlds.

Every word Dr. Bobbie Legg spoke, Iryna carried into Ukrainian. Every response, every question, every story, every moment of laughter, every difficult conversation, she carried back into English. Then back into Ukrainian again. Instantly. Sometimes for twelve hours a day.

Over the past year, she has helped us train and support more than 250 psychologists, social workers, and caregivers serving Ukraine's children and families.

Simultaneous interpretation is difficult under any circumstances. But these weren't ordinary conversations. They were about the children and families whose lives have been forever changed by war. Every word mattered. Every nuance mattered. Iryna carried those conversations from one language to another, making it possible for people who shared no common language to understand one another.

Two years ago, a friend in Madison, Wisconsin, who is Ukrainian American, knew we needed someone to translate a single document. She reached out to friends in Ukraine, and that's how we found Iryna.

We thought we were looking for someone to translate a document.

God had something much bigger in mind.

We found someone who has become indispensable to our work in Ukraine. She doesn't just translate. She helps build the trust that makes everything else possible.

This morning we dropped her at the train station in Svalyava.

As we watched her wave from the entrance, We weren't saying goodbye to our interpreter.

We were saying goodbye to a trusted friend

07/17/2026

They came by overnight train, social workers, psychologists, teachers, and staff of the Ukrainian Education Platform and its partners. Some from Kharkiv. Some from Sumy. Some from Chernihiv. Towns where the shelling never really stops.

One of them runs an arts program in Sumy for children ages four to eighteen. Half the children in her program no longer have homes. Every day, in the city's bomb shelters, she and her team lead art therapy, music, and dance classes.

This is the third city in Ukraine where we've brought trauma training and resilience support directly to caregivers like these. At the start of the training, each person was asked to bring one object that says something about who they are.

One woman brought a small toy. It belonged to her daughter, she said. When the war reached their town, her child had to leave, and their home was destroyed. She carried out only what she could. This toy is what she saved.

Another brought her glasses. She lost them once, just before speaking at a conference, and nearly panicked. Now she carries them everywhere — a reminder, she said, to see more deeply, to notice what people need before they have to ask.

A third brought a pendant shaped like a dove. Her daughter gave it to her. At work, she said, people already call her that — the caring one, the one who holds the family together, even while her own husband serves.

These are the people who hold Ukraine's children together right now. Not from a distance. From inside it.

Behind every object was someone who will return home and continue carrying the weight of someone else's story.

Thank you for making it possible for us to stand with them.

07/16/2026

Some of the strongest people in Ukraine almost didn't make it.

For the past three days in Zhovkva, we had the privilege of providing trauma-informed training and support to 23 remarkable women from the Ridni Foundation. Every one of them serves children, families displaced by war, and others carrying unimaginable loss.

As we planned the training, Ridni shared one concern. Several women couldn't come. They had no one to care for their children.
So we asked a simple question: What if they brought them with them?

We hired a caregiver so their children could come, too.
Five mothers traveled from across Ukraine with their kids.
The training gave them tools they could take back to their work. It also gave them something they rarely get for themselves: three days when someone else took care of the kids.

While their mothers participated in trauma-informed training, finding space to process their own experiences after four years of war, their children played games, made new friends, and went swimming every afternoon.

One exercise asked each woman to create a poster showing life before the war and life today. One poster showed that, in many ways, her life stopped when her husband left to fight.

It was one powerful story among so many. Around that room were women who spend every day counseling children who have lost parents, walking alongside displaced families, and helping people find hope in a war now in its fourth year.

For three days, they learned new ways to help others heal while beginning the difficult work of processing their own experiences after four years of war.

07/10/2026

Yesterday morning, Dr. Bobbie Legg asked thirty-three Ukrainian social workers to hold one hand in front of their face. She told them to notice every line. Every shadow. Every detail.Without moving their hand, she asked them to shift their focus to the far wall. The hand was still there. Then she asked a simple question.

"What happens if that's the only thing you focus on?"

It wasn’t really about a hand. Around the room sat women from some of Ukraine's hardest-hit frontline cities—Kharkiv, Sumy, Kherson, and others where explosions are part of everyday life. In a few days, they'll return to children carrying trauma no child should ever know.

"We never lie to ourselves," Bobbie told them. "We always know our hand is there."
Then Bobbie showed them a kitchen strainer.

"You can hold someone else's pain without keeping the dirty water. Let it drain away. Hold on to what is good."

For one day, the people who spend their lives caring for others were cared for themselves.

By evening, the room felt different.

Everyone shaped a piece of foil into a symbol of strength. Trees. Hearts. Ukraine's trident. Veronika, from Kharkiv, chose a smile.

"Laughter prolongs life," she said. "If we can still smile, we can work through anything."

Before the day ended, Bobbie thanked them for being a nightlight.

"A nightlight doesn't remove the darkness. It simply gives a frightened child enough light to make it through the night."

That's what these caregivers are every day for Ukraine's children.

Yesterday, because of the generosity of our donors, someone became that nightlight for them.

Thank you.

07/08/2026

Sunday to Ukraine, the hard way.

Dr. Bobbie Legg left Phoenix at 8:45 a.m. Sunday. She landed in Ukraine today at 11:30 a.m. Kyiv time. What should have been about a 20-hour trip took roughly 65.

This came just a week after she returned from Africa.

In between: a mechanical problem in Dulles. Storms. A canceled flight. A night sleeping in the terminal. A rebooked route through Boston, Munich, and Poland. More storms. A missed connection. A second night in a terminal. A scramble onto a different airline to New York. And finally, Ukraine.

Somewhere along the way, her suitcase went one way and she went the other. The lost bag with most of her clothes is presumably still touring Europe on its own itinerary. It'll catch up with her back in Phoenix—eventually. In the meantime, she had one outfit and a pair of sneakers for the next two weeks.
Toothpaste? Maybe two days worth.

She never once complained. Never lost her sense of humor.

I was waiting when she finally landed. Then we drove to Truskavets, with one stop along the way for a pair of shoes and a second outfit.

The sign in the store read, "No returns. No exchanges." Thankfully, the shoes fit.

We've pushed the start of our training in Truskavets back by a day. Bobbie will be ready. She always is. Because the psychologists we'll spend the next two weeks training matter. The children and families they'll return home to help matter. That's why she got on the first plane, and the second, and the third.

This is what showing up for Ukraine actually looks like.

Address

N7130 N Lost Lake Road
Randolph, WI
53956

Telephone

+16082358673

Website

http://theworldorphanfund.org/

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