How Operating Expenses Can Change Lives
I have a story to share!
Over twenty years ago I was riding my tandem bicycle through Kenya on a global expedition for peace called Peace Pedalers. I met a young man as I began climbing into tea country named Joseph Kamau.
Jamie & Joseph in 2007
I asked Joseph if he wanted to join me on the back of the tandem bike. As we rode he shared his story while grinding up the steep grades. He shared how he was forced to drop out of high school to support his family since his father had grown ill. He was no longer able to work to pay his school fees.
Joseph also shared his dream to become an engineer one day. He was saddened by his current situation and grim career trajectory.
In case you have not read the “our story” section at the PIE website, Peace Pedalers received financial support from a corporate sponsor called Aceva. But Aceva never actually wrote a check to Peace Pedalers.
Instead, Aceva simply chose Peace Pedalers as their reseller of choice to procure their voice, data, and conferencing services as an innovative way to sponsor the project. Aceva’s service provider, now Verizon, paid Peace Pedalers every month, month fter month, year after year, as we rode through Asia, Oceania, and now Africa.
As Aceva grew over the years to a large, successful company their support scaled as they scaled (think more phones, more buildings, more internet, more expenses) This gave Peace Pedalers additional recurring support, which gave us the ability to fund many efficient, high impact projects. One of those was the Peace Pedalers Scholarship Fund.
Joseph’s dream to become an engineer felt very sincere. He was not trying to just haggle m for some beer money like other riders. So I offered to sponsor Joeph’s education as long as he got perfect marks. He connected me to his headmaster to confirm he was performing well. Joseph gratefully accepted the challenge, and we paid about $150 a semester for him to finish high school with honors.
Joseph was the only person in his family of 11 kids to finish high school.
We kept in touch over the years with Joseph and supported him on and off to attend college and trades schools as well.
Just last week we received these photos and an update from him.
Joseph in 2023 — now a mechanical engineer!
Joseph realized his dream! He is now an engineer for Qatar Airlines! He also found a beautiful wife and has two lovely children.
If Peace Pedalers did not help him finish high school he likely would not have been able to achieve this dream.
And what enabled us to support his education was nothing more than one company’s phone and internet expenses they had to pay anyways to operate the business. The cost was the same–we essentially just redirected available capital from the reseller channel to fund the dream of a person in need
So yes, expenses can change lives. This happened 20 years ago. And it’s happening today with the PIE nonporfit funding model that’s growing!
Check out our impact calculator at our website at https://purposeinexpenses.com/calculator and see how your company’s boring operating expenses like phone, internet, software, energy, payment processing, payroll, cloud, and security expenses can change the world!
Yes, really!