Jeunesse Founder and CEO Randy Ray just released his memoir, a gripping tale of his rags-to-riches life story with exclusive details and photos.

Mud Pies to Blue Skies: The Colorful Life of Randy Ray explores his history, inspiration for Jeunesse and Jeunesse Kids, and unyielding hope for brighter tomorrows. Randy shares how he unleashed his potential and helped others do the same, and to commemorate his humble beginnings, all proceeds benefit Jeunesse Kids.

Want to give kids a hand up and get your hands on the book? Order it now in Joffice™.

Read excerpt from Mud Pies To Blue Skies

“We have been blessed, and our greatest joy is being able to share that blessing with others.”

I was brought to tears by a little girl in a remote village in northeastern China. She stood up in a classroom we’d built in the village of Dao Lazui and in a confident voice, through a translator, told my wife Wendy and I, “We’re going to make you proud.”

She was just eleven-years-old and so grateful that her impoverished village had a new school with desks for each student and a library full of books. She was thrilled to have books.

I stood there as tears trickled down my cheeks and I didn’t care who saw them. It was an emotional moment for me, the realization of a dream to help kids that had been born into dire circumstances as I had been many years before.

It was a moment more meaningful to me than the day I won a contract worth close to a billion dollars to develop a launch system for the Space Shuttle program, or the day our company, Jeunesse Global, achieved one billion dollars in sales for the first time.

Seeing the joy on that young girl’s face, and hearing her heartfelt words of appreciation for the gift of learning, was validation of my life’s journey.

From a humble upbringing in rural Tennessee to building a business that has achieved billion-dollar sales five years in a row has been quite a trip.

I know what it’s like to live in a shack with no electricity or running water, to work in a cotton field at the age of six, to be so hungry I ate mud pies while dreaming of a life where food and a comfortable bed would not be regarded as luxuries.

I was only fourteen when I sat by the side of a creek and scribbled six goals on a scrap of paper. Some of them were modest like getting enough food to eat and new clothes to wear; others were on a grander scale: to become a millionaire by the time I was thirty-five and to travel the world.

I’m proud to have achieved all six goals and even more proud to have helped many others achieve their financial goals, even acquire millionaire status. But best of all, my success has enabled me to give a hand up to children and their parents across the world who were born into abject poverty, efforts that have been selflessly supported by many of our 675,000 Distributors across 141 countries.

It has been a phenomenal experience with rapid growth rarely enjoyed by any company. We couldn’t have done it without our family of Distributors across the globe who we love to visit and hear their success stories.

We have been blessed, and our greatest joy is being able to share that blessing with others. People like that little girl in Dao Lazui and other kids and their families we support in villages in Kenya, India and Ecuador. We’ve helped them and so many more in many other countries through the nonprofit foundation that we started, Jeunesse Kids. By purchasing this book, you also contribute, as proceeds go to the foundation.

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Thank you, Jeunesse Family! At the start of the year, we set a goal to raise $1,000,000 USD to fund the WE College School of Entrepreneurship, a fully accredited college in Kenya. Despite the many unexpected challenges presented around the world in 2020, WE DID IT!

Together, we didn’t just meet our goal, we exceeded it by more than $40,000 USD!

Learn how a college education empowers girls in the Maasai Mara through Faith’s inspirational story.

Read more to get an update on the project and to learn how this project will impact students and empower communities in the Maasai Mara.

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“This idea for this project began a few years ago, and we are so pleased to see it come to fruition. The WE College School of Entrepreneurship is an amazing opportunity to make a lasting impact for communities in Kenya for generations to come. The students who attend will become the entrepreneurs who make a huge positive impact in their communities. This is an incredible opportunity for the entire Jeunesse Family to leave a legacy of empowerment in Kenya.”
— Chief Visionary Officer Scott Lewis

The first of its kind, the WE College School of Entrepreneurship will help lift communities out of poverty by empowering entrepreneurs to stimulate jobs, increase wages, improve local economic growth and address problems in their society. Volunteering and giving back to their local villages are integral parts of the WE College program, and post-graduation community involvement is a key performance indicator of success.

PARTNERSHIP WITH WE CHARITY
Jeunesse Kids has worked with WE Charity to sponsor villages around the world through the WE Villages program that features five pillars of sustainable development:

1. Education
2. Water
3. Health
4. Food
5. Opportunity

As part of the first pillar of education, WE Charity has partnered with communities to build primary and secondary schools, such as those built in the villages Jeunesse Kids has sponsored.

For the first time, children who did not have equal access to education, such as girls in Maasai Mara, were able to attend school. This has transformed communities and led to a new generation of high school graduates.

ABOUT THE WE COLLEGE SCHOOL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROJECT
This donation will fully fund the WE College School of Entrepreneurship project! This includes:

• Construction and full outfitting of the building, student lounge, dormitory and library
• Course and reference materials, computers, IT equipment and software
• Land development, property maintenance and landscaping
• The recruiting and training of staff, government registration and regulatory inspections, insurance, and licensing

ABOUT THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM
This donation will fully fund the WE College School of Entrepreneurship project! This includes:

• All students will attend on a scholarship basis
• All students must meet admission requirements
• The 2- to 3-year program will offer theoretical and practical skills and experience
• Students will earn a Diploma in Entrepreneurship
• Students will be encouraged to start small businesses while in college and present complete business plans as their final year project
• Students will be empowered to contribute to the development of society in their home communities and beyond

Once the college opens in 2022, the Jeunesse Founders and Distributors will have the incredible opportunity to guest lecture at the college.

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Annually, the National Urban League helps improve the lives of more than two million people through direct service programs, all while maintaining its 4-star Charity Navigator status, which places it in the top 10% of U.S. charities for good governance, fiscal responsibility and other best practices.

Our $200,000 USD donation to the organization is making a positive impact across the United States, as COVID-19 has upended every aspect of American life, particularly for those who are already facing the disadvantages of social and racial inequality. While the disease has shone a light on these inequalities in the country, acts of kindness also shone through with Americans and organizations like Jeunesse Kids demonstrating an enormous capacity for compassion.

Read About Initiatives

Initiatives by the National Urban League to address challenges caused by COVID-19 include:

• Mentoring young people and assisting school systems to provide outreach to teachers, so kids who feel confused, angry, anxious or distressed due to COVID-19 virtual schooling are better supported
• Providing laptops and broadband centers for students who otherwise could not participate in remote learning
• Instituting a COVID-19 testing sites in Broward County, Florida
• Providing tens of thousands of boxes of food, masks, and toiletries to people in need in St. Louis, Missouri, since the pandemic started
• Reskilling people who have lost their jobs, so they can gain new skills and find work again
• Offering remote orientations for small business owners to advise them on and connect them to their local loan services to provide critical funding to keep their businesses afloat

Learn more about the National Urban League’s vital work in 2020, here:
https://nul.org/covid-19-affiliates-in-action

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Since our $1 million USD grant to Kids Beating Cancer at EXPO NEXT 2019: Orlando, the nonprofit has used the grant to help fund a state-of-the-art cellular therapy lab that will offer the latest stem cell therapy and bone marrow transplants to children battling cancer.

During the EXPO 2020 Vision: Global Virtual Event, we had the chance to hear an update from Kids Beating Cancer COO & Board Chairman, Sam Azar, on the difference our donation has made and will continue to make. During his update, we also heard from a Kids Beating Cancer hero, 11-year-old Karthikeya, and his family.

Read more and watch the interview with Karthikeya and his family

HERO UPDATE
Karthikeya is an 11-year-old boy and one of the patients of Kids Beating Cancer. Thanks to our generous Jeunesse Family, we’re proud to share his leukemia treatment was funded by Jeunesse Kids!

On Oct. 31, 2019, he underwent a lifesaving bone marrow transplant. His donor was his sister, who selflessly gave her marrow to save his life. This treatment was only possible due to the new equipment bought with the donation from Jeunesse Kids.

Today, just over a year after the transplant, Karthikeya is doing great! He is even back to doing some of his favorite things, such as playing with his friends and LEGOS.

PROJECT UPDATE
Building a state-of-the-art cellular therapy lab has been a dream of the Kids Beating Cancer founders for 28 years. With the Jeunesse Kids donation, this dream is becoming a reality.

Kids Beating Cancer expects to move from their outdated 1,500-square-foot lab to the new 6,412-square-foot facility in 2021, which will expand their capacity for procedures, treatment options and research.

In the meantime, with the Jeunesse donation, the organization has already bought advanced equipment. This is allowing Kids Beating Cancer to provide improved patient care and offer treatments in-house that previously had to be outsourced. The new equipment also increases storage for stem cells up to 500 samples and enables the nonprofit to provide newer, advanced treatments.

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From July 1 to Sept. 30, 2020, the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund disbursed more than $46 million to quickly provide funding where it is most needed. Total disbursements from the Fund reached $219.7 million through September.

Jeunesse Kids proudly donated $500,000 USD to this global Fund, and we’re grateful to share how our contribution, along with those from others, is working to help people and communities around the world.

Read about our funding at work

On Sept. 30, the WHO reported that the number of people who have lost their lives to COVID-19 has topped 1 million, and that there were have been more than 33 million reported cases. The value of the Fund has never been clearer.

The impact of funding and how contributions have been allocated includes:

• Working with the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize- winning World Food Programme to scale up global logistics distribution so essential supplies such as PPE, testing supplies, and biomedical equipment can reach those most in need
• Distributing 15.5 million COVID-19 test kits to 152 countries and more than 220 million pieces of personal protection equipment (PPE) to 173 countries.
• Supporting research programs on potential vaccines, including eight that are now in clinical trials
• Creating an alliance to distribute 2 billion doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in 2021
• Combatting the rising misinformation related to COVID-19
• Strengthening countries’ efforts to design and implement contact tracing programs
• Ensuring vulnerable and displaced people can access services they need to stay safe from COVID-19
• Globally coordinating research to better understand the characteristics of the virus and inform the public about health measures that limit its spread