A bridge for citizens of Clay Ashland, Liberia

Clay Ashland is one of the founding communities in Liberia, West Africa, a country founded by the American Colonization Society (ACS). This was an organization established in the USA in 1817 to send free African Americans to the African continent. Liberia was settled by freed African Americans from several of the southern states to a region on the west coast of the African continent in 1822. Currently, after years of civil wars and postwar economic strife, the plight of most Liberians for improved living conditions is mainly dependent on nongovernmental agencies and philanthropic groups. The Richards and Coleman families were founding families in Clay Ashland, Liberia. Today, descendants of those families have established the Richards and Coleman Family Foundation, Inc. (RCFF), a charitable 501c3 organization, to provide help for the citizens of Clay Ashland, Liberia. Over the past 10 years, RCFF has been the primary provider of kindergarten through 6th-grade education for the children of Clay Ashland and surrounding communities.

Clay Ashland is located on the banks of the St. Paul River in Liberia. A bridge over a tributary from the St. Paul River is a lifeline connector from Liberia’s capital city, Monrovia, to Clay Ashland and many communities northwest up to Lofa and Gbarpolu counties. Before the establishment of this bridge, the primary access to Clay Ashland from Monrovia was a ferry; the ferry has not been in existence for over 50 years. Due to lack of maintenance, this bridge has deteriorated over the past few years from dangerous, to impassable, to completely collapsed. A few attempts by the government to repair the bridge have proven ineffective because the culverts used are continuously being washed away by heavy rains during the rainy season. The RCFF organization has thus decided to undertake a funding drive to build a sustainable bridge that can provide help to Clay Ashland and the other communities beyond. This GoFundMe appeal is to solicit help in obtaining the funds to build such a bridge to Clay Ashland. We kindly ask for your generous financial help in providing funds to complete this project

You can make a difference by donating today to Richards and Coleman Family Foundation Inc. (RCFF)