Joseph, Author at Heart to Care Tanzania

Minnesota ‘saint’ gardener uses plant sales to transform lives of youngsters in Tanzania

March 21, 2021February 23, 2022 Joseph Leave a comment

The following appeared in the “Homes & Gardening” section of the Star Tribune on March 21, 2021.

Roseville nurse and her plant sales support a school that is raising a nation in Tanzania.

By Rohan Preston Star Tribune

This garden in Roseville is the creation of nurse Bethany Husby.
Bethany Husby with her husband, Paul. She holds an annual plant sale to raise funds for a school being built in Tanzania.
Bethany Husby, far right, in Tanzania with Emmanuel Boaz, foreground, who inspired her to support the school after she met him on a trip to the country several years ago.
She divides her plants for each year’s sale, which have raised thousands of dollars for the school.
A flower in Bethany Husby’s garden.
A bee hovers among delphiniums in the garden.
A water lily in the garden pond.
An orange lily in the garden.
Brown-eyed Susan flowers and purple coneflowers in the garden.
The garden pond.

In January 2017, Bethany Husby traveled with her family to Tanzania for a safari vacation that doubled as her 55th birthday celebration. Besides bonding and quality time, the group hoped to see and photograph lions, rhinos and giraffes.

But capturing charismatic megafauna was far from Husby’s only indelible experience. As she was buying stamps for a postcard to send back to America, Husby struck up a conversation with the sales clerk, a shy young man about the age of one of her three sons, who was bursting with educational dreams.

Roseville woman plants flower that blooms into a school in Africa

September 17, 2019February 23, 2022 Joseph Leave a comment

The following is an article written by Vonny Rohloff that appeared in the Roseville Review on Tue, 09/17/2019

*Roseville resident Bethany Husby with students at the Bethany Pre and Primary School in Kisongo, Tanzania, Africa. (courtesy of Bethany Husby)*

Ordinary people can sometimes do extraordinary things — such as Bethany Husby, a Roseville wife, mother and career nurse; an ordinary woman who started a school in Africa.

From a plant sale in Roseville, Minnesota, grew an elementary school in Kisongo, Tanzania.

The story starts in January 2017 when Husby and her family were on a safari vacation in Tanzania.

“I met a young man, Emmanuel Boaz, in the gift shop at one of the lodges where we stayed,” she says.

A Life-Changing Gift

January 9, 2018April 12, 2022 Joseph Leave a comment

The following was originally posted on Grand Circle Travel’s website.

By Bethany H., first-time traveler from Roseville, MN

Bethany noticed that Emanuel wouldn’t smile with his teeth showing when they first met.

In January 2017, while on an Overseas Adventure Travel trip, I met Emanuel, who was working in a gift shop at the Ngorongoro Farm Valley Lodge in Karatu, Tanzania. I only needed to buy a postcard stamp, but we ended up talking for 45 minutes. I could see there was something special about him. He told me about how he was almost done with training to become a safari guide, but he put that on hold when he came upon this job at the gift shop that allows him to send money home to help pay for his younger brother’s education. Emanuel was so friendly and engaging, but he covered his mouth when talking and he would not smile with his teeth showing. There were yellowish areas on his teeth, and I could tell he was self-conscious about how they looked. I later discovered that, like many Tanzanian people, his teeth were affected by fluorosis at a young age, causing the pitting and yellowing; at age 25, he had never been to a dentist. I decided I had to help him get the smile he deserved. I had faced issues with my own teeth growing up, so I knew how he felt.