MSW student lends a hand to help African wildlife conservation organization

Fundraisers at golf courses are par for the course in terms of organizations trying to raise money for a good cause. But how often do you get a chance to play golf and help elephants?

Through the work of people like Janice Smith, a Master of Social Work student at the Indiana University School of Social Work at IUPUI, residents of central Indiana will get such a chance on Aug. 22^nd.

That’s when the U.S. Friends of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust will host a fundraising golf outing and dinner at the Trophy Club in Lebanon. Smith serves as the director of donor relations for the U.S. Friends as well as being a full-time MSW student.

U.S. Friends is an American-based nonprofit dedicated to providing financial and technical support to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a Kenya wildlife conservation organization. The organization has worked for more than 40 years to rescue, rehabilitate and reintroduce orphaned elephants, rhinos and virtually all wildlife.

Smith’s interest in the animal preservation organization came about in 2003 after traveling to Kenya with her husband, Stephen Smith, and son Nick, to visit Marty and Sue Moore of the Moore Foundation. The Moores were teaching at the Staerhe School in Nairobi at the time and the Smiths were supporting a student at the school.

They were introduced to Daphne Sheldrick, who founded the Sheldrick Trust in honor of her late husband, the conservationist and naturalist, David Sheldrick. He was the founder warden of Tsavo East National Park in Kenya from 1948 until the mid-1970s.

At the time, the wildlife trust had no official U.S. link and the Smiths decided to try bring awareness in this country of conservation of wildlife issues that should be important to everyone. Upon returning home to Indianapolis, Stephen, an attorney with the law firm of Krieg DeVault, formed U.S. Friends as a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization in 2004. Since then U.S. Friends has helped pay for such things as fencing in Tsavo Park, educational programs in schools, field equipment and petrol for the anti-poaching teams and the Kenyan Wildlife Service, milk and bottles to feed the elephants as well as medical supplies for elephants and rhinos.

“My first job was to write personal thank you notes to $100 donors,” Smith said. “People liked that.” Now, U.S. Friends has grown too large for that, but the organization puts out a newsletter about its activities to keep in touch with donors. In the first six months of this year, the group raised $82,000 for milk for elephants.

U.S. Friends has held a number of fundraising events, including New York and Seattle. The golf outing in Lebanon will be the group’s first Indiana fundraiser.

For more information about the golf fundraiser e-mail at helpelephants@gmail.com or call (248) 390-8568. To learn more about the Sheldrick Trust visit their website at www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org.