Bucks Co. Family Aims To Raise $12K In Tuition For Daughter's Friend, 'Kindred Spirit'

NEWTOWN, PA — When a Newtown family learned that their daughter's friend from Ithaca College was short the funds to continue his education, they wanted to help out.

Blair Mwangi is an international student from Kenya, who needs to pay 20 percent of his tuition this week in order to enroll for his next semester studying business — and to ensure that the credits he's already completed will count toward his degree.

In his first semester, he's found a "home away from home" with Stacy and David Hunt of Newtown, and his close friend Chianina.

"Chianina's family are the best people that I met since I came to America," he told Patch.

After he told David about his unexpected financial struggles going into this next semester, he learned the family had set up a GoFundMe with a goal of $12,000. The money would buy Mwangi's next semester in college, and some time "to figure out how to make his education sustainable for the next three years."

"The amount of help Chianina's family has offered to me is tremendous," he wrote in an email to Patch.

The affection goes both ways — David said he "experienced his goodness" in the time that they've known each other, and that he has been a "kindred spirit and like-minded soul" to his daughter in their first year at college.

"I learned that he got an academic scholarship for 80 percent of his tuition and saw that he was in good standing and got great grades, even with English as his second language!" David wrote in the GoFundMe. "I also learned that his financial circumstances back home had shifted from when he arrived last fall. His current situation was beyond his control."

David added, "I learned that his family is trying very hard back home to try to come up with 20 percent of his tuition that is needed for him to return next week. I suspect that his mother would have to sacrifice a little more than she should to make this work for her son."

Because he can't work in the U.S. on a student visa or get a student loan as a non-U.S. citizen, Mwangi does not have many other financial options.

"I was excited to hear there are people who will be willing to help me clear my school fees and get back to school," he wrote.

On Tuesday afternoon, the GoFundMe had raised $3,190 of its $12,000 goal.

The fundraiser, "Help Blair stay in Ithaca College," is linked here.

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