Volunteers are very special and important people!  Without them, Develop Africa, inc. would quickly grind to a halt. 

To fulfill its mandate, Develop Africa, Inc, depends on the gracious efforts of several volunteers.  These volunteers are involved in a range of tasks such as web design projects, office administration, program administration, assisting with training, sorting and packing of books etc.   

It would be difficult to acknowledge all of the invaluable assistance that volunteers have provided in one form or the other over the year 2006.  The volunteers have selflessly given many, many, many hours of their time.  Their contributions have made a great difference, and today many lives have been touched because of your assistance.  The organization is bigger, stronger and continues to grow.

All of your efforts have been deeply appreciated.  “Thank you for your confidence and willing to assist a compelling vision”. 

The Board would additionally like to gratefully acknowledge the exemplary efforts and contributions of the following three individuals:  An award certificate and a modest gift of appreciation have been sent to each volunteer.  In addition, the three volunteers will be featured as “Volunteer of the Year, 2006” in the January 2007 newsletter.

Matt Saul

Re’Cole Cook

Austin Swope

Matt Saul: I was born in 1980 and moved around a lot as a kid. Before I turned ten our family lived overseas twice, once in Honduras and once in El Salvador. While I was too young and insulated to gain much cross-cultural expertise from these experience, my worldview did expand some. In El Salvador, at the age of eight, I wrote my first computer program, a simple Commodore 64 BASIC script that printed a string of characters multiple times.

Fast forward to early high school where I programmed simple games and created graphics and music. Later in high school I learned web design at a Scouting Explorer Post sponsored by the Mid-Pen Library Co-op going on to author several websites, some of which enjoyed modest popularity. I went to Wheaton College, majoring in Computer Science which I really enjoyed, taking student employment in the college’s Media Resources department doing computer troubleshooting, video encoding, and web design. I stayed employed with the college after graduating, working under the Senior Web Designer. After being laid off due to budget cuts, I began doing