About us

Our mission is to support and empower poor individuals and communities through a variety of means including scholarships, digging wells, emergency medical care, farming co-ops and other projects. We connect people of faith in the U.S. with individual or community needs in developing countries especially East Timor and Ghana. We strive to support marginalized people so they can live into their God-given calling and potential.

We have provided educational scholarships for impoverished students in East Timor since 2006 and we started supporting needs in Ghana in 2022. We support students who really want to go to school and are identified as having significant need. This includes elementary school, middle school, high school, and university and primarily students who are on their own to pay for their schooling either because they are orphans or because their parents barely earn enough money to survive. Scholarship may pay for school tuition and related fees including books, uniforms, and transportation. We currently support about 40 students.  

We also support the digging of wells in Ghana and urgent medical needs, as identified by Fr. Beyuo Kuukole and other Catholic partners in Ghana. 

Currently we are also supporting the raising of funds for building a multipurpose center in Tom, Ghana. This building will be used for Mass, catechism classes, school classrooms, and community meetings. 

Currently we are helping raise funds for building a multipurpose center in Tom, Ghana. This building will be used for Mass, catechism classes, school classrooms, and community meetings.

Faith and Support Together (FAST) is a small 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization (EIN #81-1541154).  Donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. We are based in Kansas City, Kansas, and founded by Dawn Grabs. Learn more at faithandsupporttogether.org.

This scholarship fund began when co-founder Dawn Grabs was a missionary in East Timor from 2004 – 2006 with the Canossian Daughters of Charity. The Sisters run a boarding school and post-secondary training center for young women. In 2006 we began raising scholarship funds for students who otherwise could not continue in school. Through our own donations and those of a few friends, we have been consistently sending money to two teachers in East Timor who organize scholarships for the poorest students they meet.

In 2022 we started collaborating with Fr. Beyuo Kuukole (a missionary priest in Kansas City, KS). He connected us with some students in great need in Ghana and also some sponsors. We feel God paving the way for our organization to grow with these new connections and a broader donor base. We have also had the opportunity in Ghana to support the digging and building of four new in-ground wells in 2023, and we have helped several people with emergency medical needs. We plan to continue with wells and medical expenses, as we are able to, in addition to scholarships.

Giving students an opportunity to graduate from high school or college is very empowering—it really transforms their families and their society. A good education provides a better livelihood for an individual and their extended family, because they have potential to earn more money than a day

laborer. In addition, having more skilled and professional people in the community helps the development of the entire community, lifting even more people out of poverty.

East Timor and Ghana are both very poor and undeveloped. Both have a 70% illiteracy rate among adults. In East Timor, 42% of people live below the poverty line of $1.90 per day. In Ghana many people earn less than $5 per day. Both countries have large Catholic populations, and many young people. Over the past 14 years we’ve supported over 120 students, many of them for several years as they continued all the way through college.

By focusing on a small, manageable number of students and projects each year, we operate very efficiently, maximizing our impact with no overhead costs like those of a larger organization. We don’t have any paid staff, but instead rely a few dedicated volunteers to carry out our mission.