History

From the beginning, it has been about opening eyes and changing lives.

In 1988, Terry McGill traveled to East Africa and saw the incredible poverty and hardship resulting from twenty years of civil war and a ravaging AIDS epidemic in the small country of Uganda.  He was forced to ask a very personal question,

“If I really am the kind of person I would like to think I am, then what should I do about this?” 

Upon his return to Seattle, he shared his images with local school children and after seeing pictures of the conditions in Ugandan schools and orphanages the response from the local children was overwhelming.  McGill returned to Uganda with school supplies and clothing donated by local school children. As he distributed the supplies to the schools and orphanages in Uganda, he saw hope in the Ugandan children’s eyes.  Once he returned home, the photos taken with the Uganda children and their new gifts were shown to the local school children.  The school children were able to personally see the impact they made in another youth’s life.

Sister Schools was formed because McGill saw the incredible impact ‘person to person giving’ had on the youth in our own schools and the ‘hope’ that was delivered to youth in need on the other side of the world.

In the years since the first trip to Uganda in 1988, Sister Schools has partnered in more than a hundred local schools and presented to thousands of students and teachers.  Sister Schools has delivered more than half a million pounds of supplies donated by U. S. school children to their counterparts in Uganda.

Today, Sister Schools continues the pursuit of opening eyes and changing lives.