On a Journey To Touch Lives

Starosy Foundation (SF) is a California-based 501(c)3 tax-exempt charitable organization whose aim is to address the holistic needs of the underprivileged around the globe. It was founded by Osita Stella Nlemchukwu on January 6, 2010. The name, Starosy is coined from Star(Latin for Stella) and Osy, the shortened version of Ositadinma (Igbo for It shall be well from henceforth).

Growing up in Nigeria, Stella was not a stranger to serving the underprivileged. In her native community and the environs, patients had to travel long distances for basic health needs, encountering unbearable difficulties and risking their lives from terrible commute on bad roads. Her mother was a health champion and Stella was part of a small clinic organized by her family to serve the neighborhood.

As a student, she would help out with planning and execution of health outreach programs, sensitizing the community on the need for immunization against communicable diseases. Those experiences to a large extent shaped her future career goal and so wasn’t surprising when she took to nursing.

Stella had always wanted to help her community and for a long time was trying to figure out exactly how. How, being the process of designing the most cost effective and economically sustainable program that will make the most impact on the people.

The epiphany moment came when she organized a free medical outreach program to benefit her native community of Amankuta Mbieri in Mbaitoli Local Government of Imo-State, Nigeria. With the assistance of few committed friends and help from her mother and aunt she was able to purchase few medical supplies and organized a small team of dedicated health care professionals and volunteers. Not only was the team able to reach out to medically underserved areas but were able to identify those with life threatening medical problems that didn’t require much to resolve.

The effect was far-reaching and the result so humbling that it dawned on her how a little hand could go a long way to make a difference. In the process she also formed formidable alliances with other healthcare professionals in secondary and tertiary referral centers. There and then the resolve was made to replicate this phenomenal success and so Starosy Foundation was borne. On January 16, 2019, Starosy Stella Foundation went ahead and launched a Backpack Outreach Program after officially being recognized by the Nigerian government.

In Nigeria it was registered as Starosy Stella Foundation. Starosy Foundation was recognized by the US government as a tax-exempt charitable organization. Though currently operating only in Africa, the plan is to expand beyond the borders of the continent in the near future.