Our organization was founded in 2020, just before the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Uganda, by three founding members: Kajjimu Moses, Nachipa Diana Flavia and Mbalire Moses. Longtime friends who had each overcome the odds to rise out of poverty in Uganda and get an education, we were motivated by our own pasts and a common belief that we needed to help those born into similar situations. 

Just before COVID-19 broke out in Uganda, shutting down the country, we donated food to 53 families in Naluvule, Wakiso District. We had to suspend the project, however, because we could no longer afford to fund the programme, which the founders had self-funded for four and a half months. Then, Ntensibe Suzan, a friend of Serve a Smile Foundation CEO and Co-Founder Kajjimu Moses, told the group about the needs at Kateera Biikira Primary School, a rural school that serves special needs children among others, and we made a visit and began providing the children with food, clothing, educational materials and other supplies the school lacked. Although the school is hours from Kampala along poor roads, the needs are so great that we, the founders, decided the school should be one of our main programmes, along with providing villages with access to clean water and providing urban street children with food, clothing, shelter and educational opportunities.  We also partnered with Abumakkah Foundation, whose founder is a friend and former classmate of Kajjimu Moses, on a borehole project to provide more than 500 families with clean water. Another of his friends, Lutaaya Shaban, got us involved with his outreach project for street children in Central Kampala, which has become another focus for our organization. Serve A Smile Foundation has since begun working with international volunteers who are helping us with communications, web design and development, social media strategy, content creation, storytelling, donor acquisition, fundraising and marketing, so that we can have an impact beyond our self-funded projects. As grassroots volunteers who have struggled to escape poverty ourselves, the founders lack the means to serve these children in the way they deserve. And in truth, we will not achieve our goals without international support.