Jack York and Francis Njuakom, co-founders of the GOATT (Giving Older Adults Tools to Thrive) Fund, visited the Sunny View Continuing Care Retirement Community in Cupertino Oct. 28 to thank staff for their help in raising over $50,000 to help Njuakom run a senior center and other projects in his community in Cameroon, Africa. Pictured from left are Sunny View executive director Nelson Rodrigues, Francis Njuakom, former Sunny View executive director Sally Plank, Front Porch President John Woodard, Board Director of Sunny View Foundation board member Lynn North, Bill Penrod and Jack York. (Courtesy photo)
The Sunny View Continuing Care Retirement Community played host to a couple GOATTs on Oct. 28—not necessarily the greatest of all time (note the extra T), but special nonetheless.
Jack York and Francis Njuakom, co-founders of the GOATT (Giving Older Adults Tools to Thrive) Fund, visited the Cupertino retirement community to thank Sunny View staff for their help in raising over $50,000 to help Njuakom run a senior center and other projects in his community in Cameroon, Africa.
York heard about Njuakom’s plans for a senior center at the Global Aging Conference in Perth, Australia in 2016. Residents of Sunny View’s Summer House Memory Care use the iN2L (It’s Never too Late) app York created to help seniors cope with Alzheimer’s.
York was impressed with Njuakom’s plans and gave him $500 as seed money, thinking he would never see it again. But after five months, York received a thank-you letter from Njuakom accounting for every penny. This inspired York to ask Njuakom how he could be of further help.
Together, the two men established the GOATT Fund, to which donors could give $250 and have a goat named after them.
When York told former Sunny View executive director Sally Plank about the fund, she reached out to residents and staff for donations and solicited fundraising help from the Sunny View Foundation and Front Porch, operator of the retirement community.
During his visit last month, Njuakom showed Sunny View residents how the funds raised helped provide more than 8,000 people in his community with clean water, schools, goats and supplies in addition to supporting a senior center with dementia awareness and information.
Originally published at Judy Jackson