The program was founded ten years ago, with its beginnings in Brique's RL Geography class project, where a stuffed animal was sent to teachers around the world whose classes participated in exchanging post cards. One stop was in Kenya, where Brique received pictures of children who needed assistance to attend school. There were several major obstacles along the way but Brique realized she had found her passion then, even though the stuffed animal never did return home from its world tour.

Since January of 2010, LLK has also been inworld at the Lavender Field, a charity venue in Second Life which features live benefit concerts and exhibitions. When Brique discovered SL, she became involved with the Nonprofit Commons, a virtual charity whose managers are very careful about the organizations that they admit. According to Brique, members are not anonymous; they must show proof of their authenticity with documentation that the managers carefully scrutinize so that they know the organization is not a scam. Benefits are held at the Lavender Field for the Feed a Smile program where, in Linden currency, L$100 (about $0.73 USD) pays for a child's meal in Kenya. L$250 per day (about $1.00 USD) pays for everything the child needs for school and a warm meal.

I attended the Feed a Smile benefit concert featuring Russell Eponym, a wonderfully talented folk singer, who streams his music live into SL from Wales. The two met when Brique attended one of his shows and made a request for her favorite song, Catch the Wind by Donovan, which Russell obligingly sang for her and her husband. Brique shared her passion for her work with the musician, who firmly believes it is everyone's responsibility to ensure that all people are fed, especially children who are too often the victims of greed and arrogance.

Russell, who was voted SL's 2011 Favorite Male Musician at the Avi Choice Awards in December, is happy to donate his time with other musicians and artists who volunteer at the Lavender Field, so that all of the donations go directly to Kenya. He thinks of it as a small contribution on his part, which garners huge results. By the end of the hour, donations from the audience had paid for 482 meals and Brique thought that the program could reach their 2011 goal of L$4 million by Christmas.

Brique hopes that the SL venue might assist in their laudable goal of eventually building a school and other facilities for these children in RL. Russell observed that, not only does the program aim to inform people about the plight of others, it is also a marvelous use of a virtual environment. People gather together from all over the world in a joint effort to aid people by using a resource that really has no boundaries. The Feed a Smile program benefits from the use of a medium that is primarily used for entertainment, synthesized with live aid in a duality of purpose... a truly inspirational use of the SL milieu.

Live and Learn in Kenya NGO

http://www.llk-selb.de/