Eastside Catholic High School is an institution constantly seeking to understand its place in the wider world.

Students are encouraged to consider their role as global citizens – public service is a key part of their education – and graduates often boast extensive overseas aid experience on their extracurricular resumes.

Following that ethos, Eastside Catholic is building on its friendship with two schools in eastern Africa – a friendship it hopes will bring benefit to not only the impoverished students of Kenya, but also enrich the lives of those on the other side of the world in Sammamish.

In 2006, Eastside Catholic President Jim Kubacki was part of a delegation of Catholic Relief Services volunteers to go on a fact finding mission to Kenya and Tanzania, visiting the slums, orphanages and AIDS clinics of some of the world’s poorest nations.

Two and a half hours north-east of Mombasa, Kenya, they came across the village of Bamba.

“People walked from 10, 15 miles around to come and meet us, and make us welcome. They performed a great dance,” Kubacki remembers. For Kubacki and his wife Amy, the connection with Bamba was immediate. “We just fell in love with this village.”

In Bamba, Kubacki saw much his school could contribute to improving the educational opportunities of local students.

“There is a lack of everything – there are health issues, a lack of water, food, equipment,” he said. “It is easy to be quickly overwhelmed by this.”

Rather than be overwhelmed, Kubacki resolved that Eastside would help the schools in Bamba in small and immediate, but significant steps.

On Sunday afternoon in Sammamish, Eastside hosted the second annual Bamba Dash, a 5k run to raise money for the provision of school supplies and equipment.

Working up a sweat for the fundraising run were more than 100 students, staff and families, as well as the seemingly tireless champion of good causes, John Curley.

But Kubacki stresses that the relationship between the American and African schools is more than just aid from wealthy people to a third world country.

“The last thing we want to do is just ‘here is another case of America saving the world’s poor,'” he said. “The world has gotten so small, there needs to be a global effort toward cultures understanding each other.”

Eastside Principal Greg Marsh, who visited Bamba in 2008, said that typical aid efforts in Africa were often hollow and unsustainable.

“You know, too often it is a case of people visit the county, feel bad at the poverty they see, take a picture and leave a check,” he said.

But Marsh believes the people of Kenya have much to offer his school, and that the relationship between the two will be very much a two-way exchange.

Recalling the enormous generosity of the people he and his wife met in Bamba, despite their poverty, Marsh said “they have so much to teach us.”

“Our culture is so focused on materialism. To the people we met in Bamba, they are much more concerned about the love they share with their families.”

Marsh compared the joyful church services he saw in Africa to the often solemn affairs in this country.

“Their sense of faith is so much more profound,” he said. “You go to church there, and it is standing room only.”

On Sunday, Eastside was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Father Lagho, the Diocesan Priest of the Mombasa region. Lagho had been held up by visa issues, but is expected to arrive any day, for a year-long visit that will see him not only addressing local catholic schools but also undertaking graduate work at Seattle University.

Looking ahead, Eastside hopes to continue to provide school supplies to its sister schools in Africa, as well as begin a teaching exchange, and help with curriculum development – all funded by community efforts just like Sunday’s Bamba Dash.