03/23/2024
philanthropist, author
5x5 feet (mixed media)
ACQUIRED
After graduating high school in 2007, Maggie Doyne decided to go backpacking across the world. On the last leg of
her journey, she found herself working at a school and children’s home on the banks of the Ganges River in India.
There, she met a man named Tope, a Nepali refugee who managed the school and home, and his niece, Sunita —
who was about the same age as Maggie (18). Sunita and Maggie decided to visit Surkhet, Nepal, where Maggie had
a life-changing moment: She saw a seven-year-old girl on the bank of a Surkhet river, breaking rocks that would
eventually be used in construction. Child labor is common in Nepal, but the moment hit Maggie with full force. She
decided she would pay for the girl’s education, if she could.
With translation help from her friend, Sunita, Maggie learned that the girl’s name was Hima, and she wanted to go to
school more than anything in the world. To the delight of Hima’s mother, who also worked breaking rocks, Maggie
paid for a year’s tuition, a uniform, and Hima’s wages — all of which came out to about 10 US dollars. But it was a
drop in the bucket. After learning that a piece of land in Surkhet would cost $5,000 to buy, Maggie called up her
parents and asked them to wire all her babysitting savings to Nepal. She bought the land, and recruited Tope,
Sunita’s uncle, as her business partner for a future children’s center. With the help of donations from Maggie’s
hometown — Mendham, New Jersey — the children’s center became a reality.
