“I wanted to do something a little different,” says Kyle Burkholder of the study abroad program that changed his life. Burkholder went to Kenya in 2010, originally because of the program’s focus on development─something he was especially interested in. There was also an internship component which gave him the opportunity to teach at a Kenyan primary school. Prior to that, he’d been living in Maple Grove off and on since around 1992, graduating from Maple Grove Senior High School before pursuing higher education at the University of Wisconsin.
The program became much more to him and fellow students, Liana Leyrer and Ben Hardwick, after the trio came across a makeshift school in a two-room shack at the edge of Mt. Longonot. They returned to the school with supplies and cemented an inspiring relationship which developed into the Longonot Education Initiative (LEI), a non-profit helping to support and develop education and healthcare for children in Kenya. Since the organization was formed, the LEI team has raised over $100,000 in support of multiple schools in Kenya.
Burkholder graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison last year with a degree in Political Science, a certificate in African Studies and was commissioned second Lieutenant in the Air Force at graduation. He started his Air Force Intelligence officer training in May, but plans to keep an active role within his non-profit as co-founder and director.
