The Facilities and Operations employee and her family started a charitable organization during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide clean drinking water in their home country of Liberia.
Photo: Residents of Sasstown, Liberia, use a newly functioning water well that was repaired and rehabilitated by the Sayeh Foundation.
In 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Putu Sayeh, a senior construction buyer with Construction and Facilities Strategic Acquisitions (CFSA) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), began having regular monthly Zoom meetings with her siblings.
During these meetings, the family began discussing ways they could help citizens in their home country of Liberia, particularly the community of Sasstown. On June 11, 2023, the family filed letters of incorporation in their parents’ names (Priscilla and Anthony Sayeh) as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in the state of Maryland. In September 2023, use of the name was approved, and the Sayeh Foundation was born.
During one of their pandemic-era family meetings, the siblings decided that one of the most urgent needs in Sasstown was clean drinking water for the residents. During a visit by a few Sayeh family members to Sasstown in 2023, they discovered that there were existing wells in the community that were not functioning and in need of repair and rehabilitation. Because of Sasstown’s remote location and the difficulty in getting to and from the town, the family decided early on to partner with the local Catholic Church, which has a large presence and record of charity work in the area, to assist with implementing their projects.
“For our initial project, we identified eight wells, spread throughout the community for rehabilitation,” said Vivian Sayeh-Weeks, sister to Putu Sayeh. At the same time, the family identified two densely populated areas in Sasstown to install new wells. In February 2024, the Sayeh Foundation completed the rehabilitation of the eight wells. They even took it a step further, assisting the community with other issues such as repairs to a local church due to roof damage from a tropical storm.
During their most recent trip in March 2025, four of the Sayeh sisters visited Sasstown and were pleased to see that the rehabbed wells were in good working condition. While there, they decided that their next priorities would be to rehab additional wells and spruce up the areas around the rehabbed wells to make them more secure and welcoming for the residents.
“We also met with the community to discuss ways in which they could take ownership of the maintenance of the wells in the future, and to get feedback from them regarding other urgent issues,” Sayeh-Weeks said.
The family determined from their community conversations that after completing the well rehab projects and installing a few new wells, the next major project will be building a learning/community center for all residents, old and young. This second phase will be a much longer project, including building the center, furnishing it, and staffing it.
“Among other activities, we envision the older residents using the center for adult literacy, and younger residents using the center to obtain computer skills,” Sayeh-Weeks said.
The Sayeh family recognizes that this next phase of the foundation will take longer and require coordination with many other entities, but they’re ready for the challenge in support of the Sasstown residents.
“Up until the time we arrived in our hometown, I had no idea that time spent on family Zoom meetings during the pandemic could reap such satisfying results,” Putu Sayeh said.