Bring V Home: Educators work to bring boy who captured their hearts back home to Siouxland

Efforts have been launched to bring a beloved 9-year-old boy back to Sioux City after he abruptly disappeared earlier this year. Several staff members of V's former school are raising funds to bring him back to Sioux City.
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A little boy from Africa captured the hearts of his teachers at Perry Creek Elementary a few years ago. "He came to us in 1st grade and didn't speak any English because he was new to our country," said Amy Denney, who was the Principal at Perry Creek at the time. "He quickly soaked up everything, he was a little sponge."

In April 2022, when V was in 3rd grade, he and his family moved back to their home country in Africa. But then his family returned to Siouxland and V wasn't with them. Then one day this August his school got a message from someone who had V.

"I'm looking for Mrs. Denney. I have V and I need to get him back to you. He needs to continue his studies in America. Can you help him?" Denney says a good samaritan had found V alongside the road took him in and was taking care of him. But V recently contracted malaria and because of a lack of resources where he is, has become malnourished.

"He's had a rough time there and he needs to get back here as soon as possible," Denney said it took her and others some time to verify the person they were talking to was real and had V. Since fall, she's been in contact with the good samaritan, and with V himself.

Now Denney and a few others who love V are working to get him back home to Perry Creek Elementary. They've launched a GoFundMe to help get him the paperwork he needs to come to the US and also the medical care and everyday items he will need once he comes home.

"The outpouring of love and support from Siouxland is overwhelming to me," Denney said. "I've been emotional about it because they don't know him. No one wants to see a child struggle and go through the trauma he's gone through."

Denney has been working with others in the community to get him back to Siouxland, to the family who will care for him, and get him into 4th grade at Perry Creek where he dreams of being.

"We're going to get him back here," Denney said. "And I want him to be able to be a happy, healthy boy who can go to school and someday he is going to do great things. I am certain. He is going to do great things someday."

To learn more about V and to help bring him home, you can find the GoFundMe here. Denney says V will need help once he is back in Siouxland, from medical and dental care, to emotional support and more and says the help she's already received from the Siouxland community will help give this little boy the life he dreams of and deserves.

Those working to bring V home are doing so on their own time, out of love for a little boy who captured their hearts just a few years ago.

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