Recently named CNN’s 2015 Hero of the Year, 28-year-old Maggie Doyne is a young woman from Mendham, New Jersey whose care for others and incredible determination have forever changed her life, as well as the hundreds of lives of those around her.
It all started when she was 18, when she was a high school graduate who chose to backpack through four countries and do service. This trip led her to Nepal, where she met a young girl named Hima selling pieces of stones to help make money for her family. Hima was not the only child who was living in such poverty, which Doyne saw all around her during her time in Nepal.
This was the moment Maggie Doyne’s life took an incredible turn.
With a phone call to her parents, Doyne had her $5,000 of babysitting savings sent to her, and with this money she slowly began to make the differences she wished to see for the people of Nepal. She purchased a piece of land in Surkhet in 2006, which she used to create the Kopila Valley Children’s Home with the help and support of the local community in Nepal as well as her community from home in New Jersey.
Currently, Kopila is now a place where over 50 Nepali kids and teenagers call home. Doyne brought together a family, to which she is an unbelievably proud mother. These kids were once faced with abandonment or abuse, and Doyne provided them with her guardianship, her own parents as grandparents, and aunts and uncles from their caregivers. The love that Doyne pours into these children is only doubled in the love that they return to her.
Doyne’s vision to give back to the Surkhet community only continued to grow, and in 2010, the Kopila Valley School opened to its current student body of 350 children, many of who are the first in their families to receive an education. The school is not only setting these children up for successful futures, but also bettering their nutrition and building their community.
All of Doyne’s efforts and impacts have been supported by the foundation she started, BlinkNow. Founded under Doyne’s belief that in the blink of an eye we can all make a difference, Doyne has shown how capable young people are to create change, being pioneers in solutions to world poverty.
When receiving CNN’s Hero of the Year award, Doyne explained how “if you had told me when I turned 18 that I was going to be the mom of 50 kids, I would have told you that you were totally crazy. And I am. And to my kids, I love you so much. Don't ever forget how much I love you.” In her eyes, Doyne sees how “it's become so much more than just a little girl with a backpack and a big dream. It's become a community. And I want to teach and have other people take this example and hope this sets a precedent for what our world can be and look like.”
Doyne’s love and vision for the world at such a young age is truly remarkable. For her spirit, her compassion, her love for others, her ability to make a difference and her confidence in young people to create change, Maggie Doyne is my hero.
