Chapel Hill nonprofit helps pay it forward

One year, Kim Glasser decided to celebrate her birthday by giving each of her family members money and asking them to tell her how they used it to help someone else. To her, the best gift was hearing about how her family “paid it forward.”

In 2008, Glasser’s brother and sister-in-law, Eric and Charlotte White, decided they didn’t want to stop giving.

“Instead of just giving one time and being done, we thought, ‘Let’s start this organization,’” Charlotte White said.

They started the SKJAJA Fund, taking the name from an acronym of Glasser’s family members. 

The nonprofit raises money to help local kids participate in extracurricular activities they might not be able to afford otherwise, from sports to music lessons to summer camp to trips abroad.

The organization has grown a lot since it started, Charlotte White said, and it has given away between $10,000 and $12,000 each year for the last three years. It accepts applications monthly.

This month, the fund helped eight elementary school children attend the Communiversity Youth Program, an after-school program through UNC’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. This program provides children with cultural enrichment and community-building skills.

The SKJAJA Fund does ask for repayment — but in the form of helping someone else. 

Charlotte White said the organization works with school social workers to help the kids figure out a project that’s age appropriate to give back.

Elementary school kids have worked in community gardens, made cards for elderly people and cleaned up trash in their neighborhoods. Older kids’ projects range from tutoring other students to painting a mural.

“They pay us back by paying it forward,” Charlotte White said. “We hope they follow up and tell us what they did. We love hearing their stories.”

Most donations range from $50 to $300 — some are larger. 

Tenth-grader Beth Siegling received a donation toward a middle school trip to China. She spent a year and a half raising $1,500 toward the trip, and the SKJAJA Fund paid the rest. 

“(It) was fantastic and totally unprecedented,” she said. “It ended up giving me one of the most valuable experiences I’ve ever had.”

Siegling’s mother, Michelle Siegling, said she’s thankful that Beth and her younger sister were able to have that experience.

“SKJAJA was really important in helping them reach their goals,” Michelle Siegling said.

Before the trip, they gathered school supplies to bring to a rural Chinese school and helped teachers with administrative work for the trip.

“I learned a lot about responsibility,” Beth Siegling said.

@rachel_herzog

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