Friends of Ugandan Children Inc

Phyllis Hurley FOUC founder

Phyllis has worked to help children for more than a half century. Phyllis grew up in Denver, Co and graduated from Tufts University in Boston. She met her husband, Jim, at a church in Boston! As they have moved from place to place over the years, she has always been involved in education.

In the 1960’s she taught in inner city Philadelphia, sometimes having as many as 38 children in her class. There, she recognized the difficulty and the importance of providing quality education to needy children. Over the next thirty years, she and her husband, Jim, were involved in school start-ups in Chattanooga, TN, Clinton, MS and Jackson, MS. Phyllis served for 18 years as the administrator of an elementary school and later a high school, Mt Salus Christian School.

While at Mt Salus, she constantly explored ways to provide financial aid for needy students. In the early 2000s, she joined an online international humanitarian community (Omidyar.net), and became involved in a water project for Uganda. While working on the project, she came to know Akware Teopista, a young widow with three children who was trying to make a living by making and selling paper beads. As their relationship developed, Teopista sent Phyllis her crafts and the crafts of her friends.

Phyllis and Jim then began selling Ugandan crafts made by Teopista and her friends in order to allow them to feed, care for and educate their families. At first they sold at shows and festivals in the Jackson MS area, then at shows and festivals throughout the Southeast. Over a period of about 15 years, they sold over $400,000 in Ugandan crafts on a ‘fair trade’ basis, i.e. they bought the goods outright rather than on consignment. Along the way, they began to focus on the urgent need to help orphans with their schooling in order to prepare them for adult life. This began a new phase of their ministry: providing scholarships and other resources to allow orphans to be educated. Gradually, the ministry grew. At first there were three orphans being helped. That number has grown to more than 25 at a time.

In 2022, Jim and Phyllis retired to Alabama to be near two of their three children and their families. While they no longer sell crafts at festivals, they have increased their focus on helping children gain an education. In 2024, Friends of Ugandan Children Inc was formed as a charitable corporation (501 (c)(3)). This allows donations to be tax-deductible. Today, Friends of Ugandan Children Inc is helping more than two dozen children gain an education.