Help Mady bring education, food and hope back home

Jim Gray is organizing this fundraiser to benefit Mady Sissoko Foundation.

Tax deductible

(Above, Mady #22 commits to Cal. Photo credit to Joe Tipton and On3.com. Read their story here:

https://www.on3.com/college/california-golden-bears/news/michigan-state-transfer-center-mady-sissoko-commits-to-cal/ )

We’re a group of MSU Alumni and friends (and new friends from Cal) of Mady Sissoko, the basketball star whose generosity has built the first school in Tangafoya, his hometown and a modest rural village in the nation of Mali, Africa. We are asking you to join Mady and us in building on the success of this milestone achievement by funding further projects to improve the lives of the children of Tangafoya with the gift of education, food and hope.

“I don’t think [Mady] realizes what an impact he’s had, which makes the story even cooler,” said MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo in the Detroit News this past June. “He didn’t do it for [the media] to be here or me to be here or get pats on the back. He did it because he’s got people back there that are trying to do what he did…and live a real life, and man, that’s cool.”

Mady’s journey is remarkable:

being “discovered” as a 15-year-old promising basketball prospect in a remote region of Mali,
becoming one of the few who have left his village to travel to a foreign culture, learn a foreign language (English), and enter college;
becoming a star on one of the NCAA’s finest basketball teams (the MSU Spartans of course led by revered Coach Tom Izzo),
and now transforming the lives of children in his village in 2023 through creation of Tangafoya’s first school and providing the community’s first clean running water system.

Inspired by Mady’s accomplishments to date, his humble generosity and life-changing impact, we want to honor and support Mady as he continues to try to raise his hard-working community’s standard of living. We are launching a $200,000 campaign to raise funds for two major needs:

1) Critical educational needs: hiring four teachers and an administrator for four years and supporting up to 400 Tangafoya schoolchildren (1st through 6th) with school supplies, construction of a hut for the housing of the teachers, construction of a permanent concrete playground equipped with basketball goals, tetherball, four square, etc. Soccer goals will also be installed.

2) Community development support for food and power: solar power installation providing access to a power grid, power lines to the school and each village hut, and an electric grain grinder/blender for the corn, wheat and other grains that villagers must now grind by hand for subsistence and trade. A 40-foot shipping container will be purchased to allow easier and less expensive shipping of materials from the U.S.A. to Mali.

Please join us in supporting the work of this extraordinary young man. We need to complete this campaign by June, 2024. Gifts of any size will help and be appreciated by the parents and upcoming schoolchildren of Tangafoya, Mali – Mady’s brothers and sisters in spirit. Share the inspiration of Mady’s life with your friends and colleagues; join him in making a meaningful and lasting difference in so many lives.

Learn more about Mady’s remarkable story, his village, and our campaign projects at the Mady Sissoko Foundation website. The foundation website is being updated by our volunteers with new information as soon as possible

Stories about Mady

Detroit News 6-23-23 | The Athletic NCAAM 10-04-23

Sports Illustrated 1-5-24 | MLive 1-5-24

Videos

WILX TV 10 Lansing

More coming

Friends of Mady Sissoko

Michael Clayton

Paul Olson

Roger Jansen

Gary Scharrer

Jim Gray