Valencia High students are helping children in need with a charity event this week, school officials said.

The Valencia High School Smile Club will be hosting a Mothers Fighting for Others Charity Event Thursday, April 30 at the Valencia High Theater.

The show starts at 7 p.m. and tickets are $6 each. There will be performances by the VHS Hip Hop Team, VHS Open Mic and VHS Improv.

A Valencia High School student and president of the Smile Club, Andrew Flores, reached out to Rocky Turner, the woman who runs Mothers Fighting for Others, an organization that runs an orphanage in Africa.

“I like to know that I’m making the world a better place,” said Flores, a 16-year-old sophomore.

MFFO officials said they were proud that students took the initiative to set up the fundraiser, said Cyndi Kleinfeld, a representative from the organization.

“I think this shows that the youth of today are looking to help outside of their own neighborhoods,” Turner said, “even kids of the other side of the planet.”

The purpose of the smile club is to bring smiles and support to foster agencies, orphanages, senior centers, and homeless shelters with fundraising and volunteering, according to the school’s website.

“We’re really proud of the kids, especially Andrew,” said Steven Whelan, A VHS Teacher and school representative. “He was looking for an opportunity to donate all proceeds to a charity.”

“It’s amazing when kids have the opportunity to go beyond their own community, even as far reaching as this organization,” Whelan said.

The Valencia High School theater is located at 27801 Dickason Drive, Santa Clarita.

For more information, email here.
Related: Santa Clarita Unsung Hero: Nurturing 50 Children And A Non-Profit

About Rocky Turner and Mothers Fighting for Others

Rocky frequently travels back and forth between her two families, one in Santa Clarita, and the other at Saint Monica Children’s Home, an all-girls home near Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

Saint Monica is supported by Turner’s non-profit organization Mothers Fighting for Others, which provides the funds for the girls’ basic necessities, as well as school tuition.

“I always said I wanted to me a mom,” she said. “That’s what I ended up doing. That’s what I do now; I just have 50 children.”

It all started in 2006 with a simple Google search: “volunteer Africa.”

By October 2007, Turner was traveling to Kenya with the Global Volunteer Network.

She volunteered at Saint Monica and was approached by the orphanage director, who said that some of the girls needed money to attend high school.

So, Turner returned to the United States and raised $4,000. But after she sent the money she discovered that the orphanage director had not been honest about how much supplies and tuition cost.

That’s when she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Turner started traveling to Kenya three times a year to pay the school fees and buy school supplies herself.

By 2008, she had turned her efforts into the non-profit, Mothers Fighting For Others, and in 2010 they raised enough money to move the Saint Monica girls into a new building, away from the dishonest orphanage director.

The money needed for the move, $45,000, was raised within three months.

Saint Monica just celebrated their fourth anniversary in the new location, and come December they will be celebrating their first university graduate.

It’s a long way to come, Turner said, for girls who were barely going to school before MFFO stepped in.

Now they focus on making sure that the needs of each girl (as well as three boys) are met every day, while trying to find a more permanent home for Saint Monica, which is currently on rented property.

And while it might be overwhelming for Turner to divide her time between Santa Clarita and Nairobi, she said she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“I would rather be overwhelmed and fulfilled and satisfied and love what I do, than not overwhelmed and trying to figure out what to do with my life…” she said.

Turner has no immediate plans to expand MFFO, but she hopes in the future to raise more money and fund the education of other underprivileged girls, beyond those at Saint Monica.

“Being able to educate hundreds of more girls, that would be it for me…” she said. “There are 66 million girls in the world that aren’t educated… That’s just too many.”

To learn more about Mothers Fighting for Others and how to get involved, click here.