Eight Retirees Who Founded Nonprofits by: Michelle Cerone, used with permission of Forbes Media LLC / May 19,2011 http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/19/eight-retirees-who-start-a-non-profit_slide.html
For many, it was a desire to feel useful and use some of their job skills after retirement. Charlie Laliberte, founder of Children Up retired from teaching to follow his life’s passion–teaching, albeit this time in Istanbul. While there he met another teacher who eventually took a post in Northern Uganda. When he and his daughter visited the country, he found that many talented high school aged students couldn’t afford to attend high school.
While the country has a public education system for children up to the seventh grade, secondary education is private and costs approximately $1,000 a year, more than many families can afford.
Laliberte began Children Up as a scholarship program, where they find students who have scored highly on the standardized tests at the end of grade school and pay their way through school.
Though he acknowledges helping the students, he says for him and the other retired teachers in the organization, it is a treat for him.
“There are only so many crossword puzzles I can do,” Laliberte said. But more than that, he said he believes that many teachers just have a soft spot for children.
