Antoinette Mentee Brewster
Antoinette Mentee-Brewster
Founder and Executive Director
Antoinette Mentee Brewster is a native of the beautiful and vibrant country of Liberia, West Africa. She spent her formative years in both Kakata and the capitol city of Monrovia. Antoinette comes from a strong legacy of public servants. Her father, Samuel Joseph Mentee, spent over fifty years of his life in service working as an Executive with the Liberian Ministry of Education. Her mother, Mary S. Mentee, taught adult literacy for many years of her life. Although Antoinette’s parents had only three children of their own, they took care of and provided education to many children of relatives and friends in their community.
Antoinette knew at a young age that she wanted to make a positive impact on the lives of others the way that her parents had. While living in the United States in the late 1980s and 1990s, she watched horrifying stories of the situation in Liberia during its civil war, but felt helpless to make a difference.
On her recent trip to Liberia, Antoinette visited her childhood neighborhood and saw with her own eyes the devastation of the war. The house that she and her family once called home was barely recognizable from destruction during the fighting. As she looked at her home for the first time in over thirty years, she could not help but call to mind the lyrics of a song by Jim Anderson that she learned years ago from her parents–
“Lonely I wander through scenes of my childhood; they call back to memory those happy days of yore, gone are the old folks, the house stands deserted – why stand here like a ghost and a shadow? This time I was moving, this time I passed on.”
As Antoinette left the remnants of her childhood home and walked towards downtown Kakata, she was followed by children begging her for food and money. She asked these kids if they attended school and they replied, “No.” She asked if they wanted to go to school and they all replied with a resounding “Yes.”
As her plane took off for the United States, she looked down on Liberia fading away, and her immediate thought was “I will be back to help.”
Antoinette is driven by a passion to help the children of Liberia reach their fullest potential. She strongly believes that while the end of the war is a blessing, Liberia needs hope to become the strong, beautiful nation that it is meant to be. She finds that hope in Liberia’s children–though many children in Liberia have been orphaned, homeless, and denied education, they still shine with light. It is Antoinette’s mission to help give this light a place to grow through education.
Antoinette gives her greatest thanks and appreciation to her husband, Anthony Brewster, who has continued to understand her need to commit time and economic resources to her travels to Liberia. She also thanks her son Rodney and daughter Kaliswa for their support.
Cassie Thomas
After graduating from Carleton College with an interest in international education, Cassie traveled to Japan to teach English as a foreign language. After one year in Japan, she moved to Korea to complete research on the differences between Eastern and Western education systems. She taught, researched, and consulted businesses for 2 years in Korea and later returned to the United States to complete a Master’s degree in International Education Policy at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Cassie worked to open the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh and create a monitoring and evaluation system for the American Samoa Ministry of Education.
Melissa Tribelhorn
Melissa served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gurué, Mozambique from 2006-2007, where she taught English as a foreign language, coordinated HIV prevention efforts for students and initiated an empowerment group for girls aged 12-20. After returning to the United States, Melissa developed, implemented and taught sexual assault prevention curriculum in a small non-profit in Eastern Washington. She currently works for Senior Services in Seattle, Washington, where she coordinates outreach, recruits volunteers and serves on several committees which strive to improve Senior Services’ accountability to and strengthen partnerships with communities of color and other underserved populations. Melissa is excited to be working as part of the Mentee Educational Foundation team to improve children’s educational opportunities in Africa.
Walt Krueger
Walt Krueger, an estate planning and trust attorney in Kirkland, Washington, and his family are committed to education as the key to making this world a better place. His wife, Kathy, has taught for forty years in two grade schools and two high schools, St. Aloysius in Spokane, St. Mary’s, Holy Names Academy and Seattle Prep in Seattle. He has served as board member and president of the board of directors of both Holy Names Academy high school and Kirkland’s Holy Family grade school. As a member and vice president elect of Kirkland Kiwanis, the international service organization, Walt is a lunch buddy at A.G. Bell Grade School and Vice President of Kirkland Kiwanis, the international service organization. He is a former Treasurer and member of the board of governors of the Washington State Bar Association, and has recently completed fourteen years as a board member of KITH, a grass roots, non-profit assisting families, especially mothers and children, in transitioning from homelessness. Greg Mortensen of Central Asian Institute (Three Cups of Tea) is an inspiration to Walt for what MEF wants to accomplish in Africa. Walt attended Wenatchee Valley Community College and graduated from Gonzaga University with a B.A in Political Science and from Gonzaga Law School with an L.L.D.
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