An Arvada-based nonprofit with board members from throughout the metro area aims to help rebuild the world’s newest — and one of its poorest — countries. Seeds of South Sudan helps relocate and educate orphans who face an otherwise bleak future, with the intention that the children return to help rebuild their home country.

“Without help from an organization like ours, these children are stuck in a refugee camp,” said Arvada resident Jill Flateland, a Seeds volunteer who sponsors children with her husband Byron. “Education is key for allowing them to actually have a life. We offer them an opportunity to become educated, with the goal of giving back to their home country — to be the seeds of South Sudan.”

Group founder Arok Garang, who was one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, will be speaking about his life’s work at several metro area churches in June. As a young man, the United Nations helped Garang move to Colorado from a refugee camp, where he earned an economics degree from the University of Colorado at Denver. He now lives primarily in Kenya, where he oversees a boarding house in which Seeds’ students live.

Each year, Seeds sponsors several South Sudanese orphans from among thousands at the refugee camp. They then live in the boarding house and attend school.

Seeds’ sponsors pay $150 a month, which covers the cost for a student’s education, lodging, food, clothing and medical expenses. In exchange, they can track their student’s progress, and communicate via letters and Zoom.

Conifer resident and Seeds board member Eileen Steeg learned about the organization in 2023 and sponsored two children who were living in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp with 150,000 other refugees.

“I realized this was the most meaningful opportunity that had crossed my path since I had retired from teaching in 2018,” she said. “Americans spend so much money per month on fast food and coffee and for a relatively small amount of $150 a month, I could impact and basically save a life. It was an amazing feeling.

“Some of our kids have gone on to university and are in the process of becoming doctors and lawyers,” she added. “We have one young man who is graduating this December with his medical degree. Just imagine if he had stayed in the camp!”

Seeds of South Sudan is closely affiliated with Arvada Covenant Church, where volunteers helped Garang form the nonprofit in 2011. Its board includes volunteers from Conifer, Denver, Littleton, Thornton, Westminster and Arvada.

South Sudan, which has been independent from Sudan since 2011, is recovering from decades of civil war. Complicating its recovery, it faces ongoing issues with Sudan over oil revenues and land borders, and fighting between government forces and rebel groups.

The conflicts and disease have separated families and fed a constant wave of misplaced children, many of whom arrive at refugee camps malnourished, traumatized and alone. Their trials don’t end there; malnutrition and disease are ongoing issues in the Kakuma Refugee Camp, according to Seeds website, and educational and economic opportunities are limited.

“Inside this small city at the edge of the desert, children age into adulthood and hope fades to resignation,” the site says.

“The bottom line is, they don’t get out of the refugee camp unless they get sponsored,” said Seeds’ board member and Arvada resident Jeri Lou Maus, who also sponsors a child.

Through Seeds, 159 children have received an education or are now attending school in Kenya. Sixty-five have graduated high school and more than 20 are attending college in Kenya.

Thousands more remain in the refugee camp.

“No matter how many you sponsor, it’s never enough,” board vice president Byron Flateland said.