Junior Board – Open Hearts Big Dreams

Why do you volunteer with OHBD and what impact has it had?

Ellenore Angelidis — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 16:04:43 +0000

Guest Post by Amelie LaPorte-Manahan I was adopted from Ethiopia as a child and have grown up in the Seattle area. My family first got involved with Open Hearts Big Dreams (OHBD) when I was a baby. They have been connected with OHBD ever since, but over the last few years I have been actively contributing. It’s exciting to be part of global literacy and this cultural community!

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Spreading Book Joy in Ethiopia

Ellenore Angelidis — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 04:38:02 +0000

This is a guest post by Samara Alazar, one of volunteers about her experience leading a project to fundraise for locally printed books and distribute them in Ethiopia. Over the winter break of 2022, I traveled to Ethiopia. My goal was increasing literacy amongst underprivileged children. I have been working with Open Hearts Big Dreams to translate children’s books into Spanish I also sold…

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Connecting to Roots and Giving Back Through Children’s Books

Ellenore Angelidis — Sat, 02 Dec 2023 19:34:11 +0000

My name is Nadine Roose. I am 17 years old and I am a senior at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California. My mom is Ethiopian, and my dad is Dutch and almost every summer since I was 5, my family and I have visited Ethiopia. I always stay with my grandparents in Addis Ababa, but throughout my visits I see many aunts, uncles, and cousins. I love going to Ethiopia, I feel at home there and…

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Junior Board Blog Series: Julia Mayner – Why I Joined OHBD

Ellenore Angelidis — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 15:59:19 +0000

I got involved with Open Hearts Big Dreams (OHBD) during the 2016 fall semester of my sophomore year in college. I knew very little about the organization, other than that the people involved are continuously working toward something great and that joining served as a phenomenal opportunity to learn and serve. My mother is friends with the founder of OHBD, Ellenore Angelidis, which is how I found…

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Junior Board Blog Series: MacKenzie

Ellenore Angelidis — Sun, 05 Mar 2017 00:12:30 +0000

My name is MacKenzie. I am a freshman at Issaquah High School. My family adopted my youngest brother Ermias in 2013 when he was six and I was ten. I had the chance to go visit him when he was still living in Ethiopia. He had lived in the orphanage for two years. I played with him and his friends when I was there. Even though we didn’t understand each other we still had lots of fun together.

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