CHARLOTTE ROCKWELL
PHOTOGRAPHER
GRACE MAIN
COPY EDITOR
2/23/2026
Since 2009, Alma students and various organizations throughout mid-Michigan have had ties in the small Western African country of Sierra Leone through the City Garden Clinic Hospital in Makeni, Sierra Leone; and beginning in 2018, the Footprints Orphanage which was built in response to the 2014-2016 Ebola Epidemic which left thousands of children orphaned.
“In 2014, 2015, 2016, there was the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. And the hospital closed for nine months.
Our students obviously couldn’t go there. 15 of the healthcare workers died at the hospital where we had our students volunteering, treating Ebola patients. They left 50 orphans,” said Dr. Sandy Hulme, Arthur L Russell Professor of Political Science at Alma College, and also the Vice Chair of the Footprints Orphanage.
From then on, money was raised by various Grants and organizations, even including the students on Alma’s Model UN team, which contributed $10,000.
“We wrote a Rotary Global Grant for $53,000, and there’s an organization called Arms Around Sierra Leone, which was founded in 2010 to provide prosthetic arms and legs to people in Sierra Leone, so they put in $20,000; and Footprints Missions put in the rest. It cost $110,000 to build this orphanage, and it opened in 2018,” said Hulme.
When the orphanage originally opened in 2018, it had 25 children ages 3-15. Now, it has expanded to 39 kids and is looking to eventually expand to include 12 more children.
The kids attend school; learn trades like sewing, agriculture, and woodworking; and are given the food, housing, and love they need to thrive. Each child is sponsored by donors.
“That [sponsoring] consists of supporting her school’s tuition because there’s no public schools there, it’s all private schooling. Also, health needs, food, those types of basic essential things,” said Chloe Anderson (’26), who has been to the Footprints orphanage twice now in the past four years she has been at Alma.
After the first time she went, she connected with one of the kids, Aminata Joyce (who goes by Joyce). Anderson decided to sponsor her shortly after and has continued to do so for the past two years.
Anderson went back to Footprints in the summer of 2026 for three weeks.
“It was just so cool getting to have that connection [with the kids, especially Joyce] the first time, but then getting to even grow on that [connection] the second time,” said Anderson.
In her most recent trip to Sierra Leone, Anderson did a resume building activity with the kids, and Joyce expressed interest in becoming a teacher. Although this may change over the years, Anderson nevertheless wants to be there for Joyce’s future.
“For me, a big goal I’ve kind of wanted to put for myself is being able to support her [Joyce] in that next step. So, I hope to one day pay for her college,” said Anderson.
In addition to volunteering, Alma students have also conducted research in Sierra Leone, providing information for a country that is not heavily researched.
“A lot of students who go to Sierra Leone, whether it’s a hospital or the orphanage, also end up doing an independent research project,” said Hulme.
“We had two students do studies on transitional justice in Sierra Leone, and they each interviewed about 150 survivors of the Sierra Leone Civil War…. We have students working on maternal health, we have students working on psychology students who are doing different studies. So, the idea is volunteer, and because of this, then these students end up presenting their work at national conferences andpublishing in undergraduate journals. It’s an amazing opportunity,” said Hulme.
Currently, the City Garden Center Hospital has started a new project, focusing on improving maternal health, due to the high mortality rates of pregnant women in the country. In the first month with this focus, the hospital has seen over 300 women. In addition, the Footprints Orphanage is looking to expand to accommodate for 12 more children, improve the greenhouse used for farming, and build a playground for the kids.
There have been around 120 Alma students who have volunteered at either the hospital or the orphanage through P-Global. If you are interested in being involved, email Dr. Sandy Hulme at hulme@alma.edu.
“It’s a really good opportunity to understand, or try to understand, a life very different than yours,” said Anderson.
The Almanian: News 
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