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Margaret Heighton, right, and her daughter Heather are co-founders of No End to Love, a nonprofit organization that assists families in Kenya by establishing clean water sources, helping fund educational opportunities and supporting business initiatives.

Courtesy photo

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Women in Kenya obtain water from a spring renovated by the Utah-based nonprofit organization No End to Love.

Courtesy photo

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The nonprofit organization No End to Love helps families in Kenya plant garden towers, allowing them to grow a variety of vegetables in a small space.

Courtesy photo

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At age 65-70, most people have either retired or are thinking of retiring. Margaret Heighton of Utah did neither.

Instead, she repurposed her life and started a nonprofit organization called No End to Love to help people in Kenya.

No End to Love is a small nonprofit organization, but it has a big mission to build self-reliant Kenyan communities one family and one village at a time. “Our goal is to establish clean water sources, assist with education, support business initiatives and improve living conditions,” Margaret said.

Married for more than 50 years, Margaret has seven children, 10 grandchildren and a foster son who has been part of their family for over 20 years. A son with cerebral palsy passed away at the age of 13.

In 2006, Margaret and her oldest daughter, Heather, decided to start a business together and purchased a Curves franchise. One day, they were deciding on a color scheme that would create an empowering environment for their new location. Little did they know what was coming in the future for both of them when Margaret opened up her closet door.

“Mom opened up her closet and pulled out some African print material she had purchased at a local store,” Heather said. “Since middle school, I had always wanted to go to Africa. What my mom didn’t know was that I had received a new name while participating in a women’s group. The new name was Nailah, an African name meaning ‘to attain and succeed.’ We named our new Curves Nailah’s Club.”

In March 2015, Heather was facilitating a coaching program and received her wish to go to Africa. The coaching organization owner and several of the coaches went to Kenya on a humanitarian trip to help Kenyan women visualize their own future and accountability in their lives. Margaret helped Heather raise funds for the trip and soon became friends with some Kenyan people on Facebook.

In the fall of 2016, Margaret was presented with an opportunity to go to Kenya and experience it for herself while also meeting the Kenyan people she had befriended online. “How could I pass up the offer?” Margaret said. Six weeks later, she was on Kenyan soil and gave her Kenyan Facebook daughter, Anita, a hug for the first time. Her heart changed forever.

“My first trip to Kenya at age 67 began my humanitarian journey and changed my heart. Charity work has always been part of my life,” Margaret said. “When I first returned from Kenya in 2016, I remembered seeing so many women washing clothes in muddy rivers and streams, then bringing that same water home to cook, clean and drink. I wanted to make life easier for the women and children who are responsible for fetching water from muddy water sources miles away from home. I came home and said that is my mission.”

From 2016 to 2018, Margaret did a lot of research about how to complete water projects. She hired a Kenyan consultant to find out where water would be available underground. She also identified areas that needed water projects during her 2018 visit to Kenya. “I realized that clean water was desperately needed. I also realized that rain barrels and community rain harvesting systems would be the most efficient way to bring clean, accessible water to the villages,” she said.

In February 2020, Margaret decided she needed her own voice and started a nonprofit to accomplish the goals she felt were important after working with Kenyan families for the past four years. Heather’s favorite hymn, “If You Could Hie to Kolob,” inspired the name: No End To Love.

“It just fit,” Heather said, “and our nonprofit became No End to Love. The Kenyan people love you and what you are doing for them. They love their life.”

Currently, Margaret wears most of the hats in No End to Love, although Heather is on the board and co-founded the organization with her. “Heather is a great support and motivator,” Margaret said, “and I talk to her all the time about what we need to accomplish.”

In 2022, Margaret, her youngest son, Daniel, Heather and her 17-year-old daughter went to Kenya after a four-year COVID-induced hiatus and met Fred and Timothy, who became community representatives that facilitate the humanitarian projects.

Margaret’s first attempt to bring clean, accessible water to the villages began just before the pandemic. They completed the rehabilitation of the Olokeri Springs in July 2022 after delays related to COVID. “Now a beautiful new tap stand provides certified clean, pure water for over 100 families,” Margaret said.

Margaret had also researched community rain harvesting systems, and one of the first projects was setting up tanks for harvesting rainwater during the rainy season, thus helping to ease the drought concerns of Kenyans.

No End to Love has begun to install water tanks that capture the rainwater to help families. “Now that I have the tank and I harvest rainwater for home use,” said Naimodu, a mother of five, “my girls don’t waste time in going to the river in fetching water. They use that time doing their assignments and also studying for exams.”

Margaret has now set a goal to build a much larger project — a community rain-harvesting system to service 3,000 people year-round. Building larger-capacity infrastructure to take advantage of the rainy seasons will help Kenyans during the dry seasons and droughts.

Having water has led to creating garden towers. “Garden towers are lifesavers for our Kenyan friends. They are 4-foot-tall cylinders made of a durable mesh fabric,” Margaret said. “You fill the cylinders full of soil, punch holes every couple of inches apart, and then plant seedlings in them. Within a short period of time, you can produce a variety of vegetables in a small space. So far, we have helped 38 families with garden towers.”

Normejooli, a Kenyan grandmother, received a garden tower. “The garden tower changed our lives,” she said, “and helped us very much to harvest daily kales. It also taught us a very important lesson that many kales will be planted in a small piece of land without disturbing more land.”

Education also is important to Kenyans and to No End to Love. “We currently sponsor 50 students from 32 families who attend 30 different schools,” Margaret said. “Benefits include building self-confidence; rescuing girls from early marriage; influencing boys to become better sons, husbands and fathers; and teaching them English so they can communicate in the modern world.”

No End to Love also provides scholarships to help individual students pay for uniforms, school fees and transportation costs to attend a boarding school for four years to finish high school. “It normally costs between $400 to $500 a year to sponsor a high school student at a boarding school,” Margaret said. “Some sponsors provide the full annual cost; others send a monthly payment to our Education Assistance Fund to help.”

No End to Love supports business initiatives that create income opportunities for individuals, families and communities. One unique business incentive helps young high school graduates. “After students graduate from high school, they receive two goats to create income opportunities for them,” Margaret said. “The goats produce milk for the family and to sell. Plus, these goats have babies that can be sold or kept to grow the herd.”

Other initiatives include farmland, beehives and beadwork made by the local women. No End to Love continues to research other sustainable opportunities.

Fred, one of the Kenya community representatives, has high praise for No End to Love. “They have been educating students in my community, and many lives have been transformed. Some have already obtained employment, students’ education has been paid, and many families have received solar, garden and water systems installation.”

For Margaret, making a difference can swing in different directions, depending on the day and the circumstance. “Some days I am proud of the things I have accomplished,” she said, “and other days I am overwhelmed at all that still needs to be done. Yet, we know that water is life, education gives hope, business initiatives give opportunity, and when a family has safe, clean and adequate housing, they will start to thrive.”

If you wish to contact or donate to No End to Love, send a message to margaret@noendtolove.org or visit every.org/noendtolove or the organization’s Facebook page.

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