I am proud to report that We have raised enough money to guarantee Eh K Pru Shee Wah’s enrollment at the prestigious Albany Academy for the next four years.

Thank you, thank you, you have contributed much more than money, you have altered the course of a life and affirmed the American dream of openness and generosity.

The Army Of Good send more than $15,000 to the academy’s special tax-deductible fund in the last few weeks.  Academy Senior Alex Borgess and his family raised more than $6,000 to cover Eh K’s tuition shortfall for her senior year.

We did the rest.

The academy had awarded her a $21,000 tuition. The costs for her are closer to $28,000.

I agreed to raise the remaining amount, along with Alex, who made his contribution his senior project. Alex is going to the Manhattan Institute of Technology in September. Thanks Alex.

I’m also sending a check for $375 for  Eh K Pru’s lunch plan for the year.

In addition, we sent a total of $12,000 to the Academy to support Sakler Moo’s tuition for 2018 and 2019. Sakler and his family do not with any publicity or interviews, and so our contributions to him will end this year.

Your generosity is boundless.

I will, of course, respect his wishes not to talk to me about his experience at the school.

The school has made arrangements to cover the remaining costs for him, he can stay as long as he wishes to.

I have to give many thanks to Kathy Sosa, Eh K Pru’s teacher at the Hackett Middle School. She first told me about Eh K Pru and worked very hard to help with the application and admission process, complicated under the best conditions.

I want to thank Christopher Lauricella, the academy Headmaster, for supporting this idea and for keeping his word. I argued with him and others for a full, rather than partial scholarship, but they were generous in the money awarded Eh K Pru, and I am nothing but thrilled by the fact her total tuition is covered for her full-time at the Albany Academy.

I’m going to continue my fight with these private schools to give these refugee children a full scholarship that covers all of their costs. I didn’t win that argument this year, I will keep fighting. The $1,000 admittance fee and the $6,000 in additional tuition costs are crippling for families with no money at all. And me and the Army Of Good won’t be around forever.

To do right by these children and their very battered families, they need to offer full scholarships with financial aid.

I plan on paying Eh K Pru’s lunch plan fees over the next few years and also providing ancillary support for the sudden fees and costs that come with life in a private school – trips and fees. I’ll save some of the donations I receive for the refugee fund.

I will be going to see Eh K Pru from time to time at the academy to see how she’s doing and report back to the good people who have made her enrollment possible.  She and her family are happy to talk to me.

And they have agreed that I can take her picture.

As you know, this transparency is essential for me, it’s a condition of support before I will ask for money or accept any. You have the right to see where you money goes, and to whom.

This policy was a source of continuous conflict at RISSE, the refugee and immigrant support center. So I went out on my own. It is much better for me.

Eh K Pru is a remarkable person, she spent a decade in a U.N. refugee camp before moving to Albany, where she rocketed up the ranks of her public school class and became an honor student.

I’m going to meet her parents in the next few weeks.

She is, Kathy says, a hard worker, an accomplished student, a generous classmate and friend. She is also charismatic, poised and articulate.

I am thrilled.

Now, onto the next gifted refugee student. I’m still working with Noorul Potak from Afthanistan, he felt the Albany Academy was not the right school for him, we are looking at some other schools.

I’m meeting on Monday with officials at the Bishop Maginn High School, a private Catholic School with an avid interest in refugees and minority children, and also with the Emma Willard School in Troy, considered one of the best private schools in the country. I’ve approached several other private schools as well.

I will work hard to make this happen, I will not be discouraged or deterred.

The school is eager for refugee students to apply, and no one is denied admission over money.

This is laborious process on all ends, it is worth it. We don’t need any more money for Eh K Pru.

I am especially grateful to the Army Of Good for your support for Eh K Pru, and for Sakler Moo these past two years. Also for your trust in me and in this work. I believe this is the true and lasting spirit of America.

I think you have done a truly wonderful thing. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.