(Branson Tri-Lake News) — To say 17-year-old Riley Banks is on a mission could be considered an understatement.
The Branson teen has distributed hundreds of backpacks and school supplies to children in Kenya, provided more than 1,000 hygiene kits to girls there, helped provide a medical clinic for more than 1,300 people and opened a school this year. She does it all through her nonprofit Generation Next, which she set up before she could even drive. While she continues to collect school supplies, hygiene kits and oversee a school in Kenya, she is also working to open an orphanage there.
Aside from building a school, providing for children and opening an orphanage, Banks is a senior at Branson High School.
“I don’t think Generation Next would have grown like it has if God didn’t want me to be in this area,” the 17-year-old said recently sitting in her parent’s Copy Run store at the Shoppes at Branson Meadows.
Banks’ journey began when she was 13 years old.
Her uncle, a doctor, and his wife, she explained, were going to serve in Kenya for six months.
“I thought it would be neat to go and visit,” Banks said.
In order to afford the trip, Banks said she had to give up Christmas gifts and had to help raise money to pay for travel expenses.
“For my birthday, I asked for toys to take over there,” Banks said.
She made a two-week trip with her father, Lucas.
While the trip in itself was an experience, the biggest eye-opener came when she went with her aunt to help feed babies in a neonatal unit.
“All the babies were in these tubs,” she said.
The babies weren’t swaddled in blankets and weren’t even wearing diapers, for that matter. She wasn’t given a bottle to feed the babies, rather a small medicine cup.
It didn’t take long before the smell and everything became too much for the 13-year-old and she rushed out of the room before passing out.
“It was almost like a culture shock,” she said.
During that trip to Kenya, she also had an opportunity to volunteer at an orphanage, which is where she found inspiration for the first project that came out of Generation Next.
She said as children practiced writing, she noticed they were sharing a pencil. As one would finish writing a word, the child would pass the pencil to the next student. She said she realized how hard it must be to learn when they don’t have the right supplies, something many students in the U.S. take for granted.
“We came home from that trip and I was just like, ‘Wow,’” she said.
Soon after returning to Branson, with the help of her family, she founded Generation Next.
“The idea behind the name is if we help one generation, then they can go on and help the next generation,” she said.
At the end of that school year, Banks organized a school supply drive, asking students to donate their unused school supplies. With those supplies, Banks was able to return to Kenya, just a little more than a year after her first trip, this time with 200 backpacks full of supplies.
“I’d just fallen in love with these people,” she said.
It was during her second trip when she said it was brought to her attention another factor that impacts eduction of many students — the lack of sanitary supplies.
“I talked to the head mistress who told me a lot of girls, when they reach a certain age, they don’t come back to school,” Banks said.
She said often the girls couldn’t afford sanitary supplies and without the supplies, the girls often missed a week of school or would turn to prostitution to help with money.
“I thought that is not fair because these girls were my age and that should never happen,” Banks said.
For her third trip, Banks was able to collect enough items for 200 hygiene kits, as well as more backpacks. Also, during that third trip, Generation Next partnered with Nomad Charities, out of Bend, Ore., to host a medical clinic.
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“We had 1,324 people come through,” she said.
While helping at the clinic, she said she saw people who came through with HIV and AIDS, as well as many other diseases.
“That was pretty much the hardest thing I’d ever done,” she said.
During Banks’ third trip, they also began working to complete a partially constructed building. Banks explained that a man who had started work on the building, which was intended to be a school, was robbed and killed years before. The building hadn’t been touched after that, Banks said.
In 2012, when they were in Kibwezi, Kenya, they began working on the building. Since that time, Generation Next had been sending money to finish the building.
This summer, Banks was able to open the school named Pamoja, which means together. The school serves 50 children.
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“We pay for their fees,” she said. “We pay for their teacher and they get a meal.”
For Banks’ latest project, Generation Next has partnered with Nomad Charities again, this time to open an orphanage.
To fund it all, Banks spends most of her weekends speaking at churches throughout the state.
“I’ve spoken at a lot of different place and we have donors who send monthly (donations),” she said.
While the teen will admit it can be exhausting running a nonprofit while going to high school, she said she loves it.
“I’ve missed a lot of school this year,” she said.
Banks maintains straight As and said her teachers are always willing to work with her.
“I think I’m just focused on it because it is something I just love to do,” she said about Generation Next. “They say, if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. I think that is so true.”
The Branson teen credits her parents, Tracy and Lucas Banks, for helping her keep it all together.
“My mom and dad are a big part of that,” she said.
She said her mom Tracy Banks is the organizer and makes sure she is where she needs to be every time she has a fundraiser or group to speak to.
While Banks said she recognizes there are people in need in the Ozarks, and she does work to provide for children in Taney County, she said her heart seems to belong to Kenya and the people there.
“I think it was just their attitudes,” Banks said. “They are the most positive people I’ve ever met. They are so thankful for everything God gave them because they might not have it the next day.
“Their spirit is just incredible. It is just something you don’t see here.”
While Banks said she would like to head to Kenya as soon as she graduates from Branson High School, she understands the importance of her own education and plans to attend college and get a degree in elementary education.
Then, she said, she plans to move to Kenya and live at the orphanage.
“My goal in life is to encourage people to never give up and to inspire people,” Banks said. “I want to inspire people to think they can do whatever they can think of.”
Tracy Banks said she is in full support of her daughter and her daughter’s dream, no matter where it seems to take their family.
“I don’t think she knew it would turn into this,” Tracy Banks said. “It is fun. It is hard work. We love it.”
For more information about Generation Next, visit generationnextcares.org.
this is truly inspiring. i am also looking to be a missionary after i get out of college. thank you, riley, for all you are doing for God’s kingdom!
hello, my name is miss Justina i was having problem with my husband
and also having challenge in my business.i did not know what to do to put an end to
it.one day i was making some research online,when i came across a testimony on how some one
sow a seed of faith to favor orphanage baby home and her life change for good.so i contact the
email address,[[email protected]] it was own by a pastor.i told the him what i am passing true.the pastor told me that
there is nothing his god cannot do. i should have faith and believe that every things will been fine.
the pastor told me to sow a seed of faith to his new orphanage baby home he just build to help
the less privilege baby and god will reward me. i did as he said.he pray with me and told me that
very soon every things will been fine.after one week, the problem i was having with my husband that almost
break up my marriage and my business that was facing some challenge, every things stop. my husband came to
beg me and ask me to forgive him, my business was moving well.thanks been to the god of pastor favor.
i am using this opportunity to let you know that,if you are passing some difficult in any area of
your life, please do not give up in life, just sow a seed of faith to pastor favor orphanage
baby home, and have faith and believe that the god of pastor favor will
solve it for you.thanks, this is the email contact. [[email protected]] you can also contribut to upkeeping of
this orphanage baby home,god will also bless you.
Children are our future. But for many, that future is uncertain. poverty, hunger, exploitation, abuse, natural disasters and lack of opportunity at a young age are indescribably distressing. Include the loss of love, support and comfort of family life and an orphaned child is the most tragic and poignant symbol of heartbreak imaginable.
Our Orphanage Home is specially called for the upkeep of orphans, abandoned babies, motherless, abused and less privileged children. All over the street, and society, we find these groups of helpless people who need care, support a sense of belonging and a home they can call theirs. Touched and moved by the plight and feelings of these our fellow human beings hence our vision is to provide them their peculiar needs in the area of shelter, health care, education, food and clothing. Our clear objective /goal is set at erasing completely street, psychological complex, low esteem, negative moral vices homeless children from our society. Beloved, sincerely speaking we cannot succeed in this divine course without your financial and material support. Please help us to put a smile on the faces of these Orphans, less privilege children. Every act of love, care and compassion to these orphans will be greatly rewarded, remember God loves a cheerful giver, nothing is to small join us this quest and help to build a life today.
Thank you for this. It’s so inspiring. I also plan to be a missionary, in fact I want to start schools, orphanages, hospitals, etc. in places that don’t have the Gospel. I love children and it has been my dream to work with them for years.
Where do you guys want to be missionary’s to? God has really put missions onto my heart also. Great article. Thanks for putting it up!
I’m interested in teaching at a small, family style, Christian orphanage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We adopted my youngest sister from that orphanage 🙂
I love reading about the Lord’s heart at work through this amazing young woman! I’m similarly called to a foreign country – of course, while semi-foreign to me, it is not foreign to God! As I prepare for hard things in South America, I’ve been really encouraged by this story – God bless you Riley!
Funny how it isn’t “mission work” unless it’s in a foreign country!
Actually, since we all have the mission – job, calling – of following Christ, wherever we work with Him, that is our mission work! It’s just that some of us have been called to ‘foreign’ countries, which makes sense to me because in our Western countries most people have heard the gospel. It has been said that no one on earth has the right to hear the gospel twice when there are some who have never heard it once. While I might not fully agree with that statement, I understand the principle 🙂
Meanwhile, I’m working out my current mission in my (Western) home country! (www.withourlives.com)
God bless 🙂
Yes, I’m planning on foreign missions as well, in the future, but for right now, my local community college is my mission. 🙂
So neat to hear about a young person doing so much! Keep up the good work Riley!
I’m so proud of you Riley!!! If you haven’t already, PLEASE read “Kisses from Katie” She has the same God Given drive for Kenya – she is only in her early twenties, and lives there, she is the legal guardian for 14 girls, and when she is 25 (local law) will legally adopt them all!
I’m a Mid-High Sunday School teacher in New Mexico – I’m currently teaching through Do Hard Things for the second time. My kids LOVE your book. Thanks Brett and Alex!!!
Orphanages are NOT the answer. http://www.alternative-care-uganda.or…... support activities that keep children in communities not orphanages. Also, let’s stop stigmatising children by using labels such as orphan, which is not only offensive in an African context but also is usually inaccurate. From the baseline study 2012 it was found that very few children who have lost both parents are in orphanages in Uganda. In East Africa we have a growing community of Government and Civil Society organisations who are working tirelessly to regulate and close orphanages and develop community based alternatives. This is constantly being disrupted by westerners coming to East Africa and supporting and building orphanages. Fantastic that people are so passionate about children at risk but supporting orphanages is not the way forward and there are so many other things than can be done instead..
this is really amazing!
Even though this was posted two years ago, I still just wanted to comment and say how beautiful it is! The Lord has given me a heart for the children of Uganda. I enjoy being their advocate by hosting projects to help spread the love of Jesus to them.
God bless this girl. She’s doing a lot for the Kingdom… I shall pray that God will continue to use her for His glory, as I try to not get too jealous…. I love mission work, but the Lord has closed that door, as of now. 🙂
I LOVE the pictures. That is really inspiring.
Welcome to The Reb Rebekah!
Thanks!:)