A choir from Kenya is set to perform a unique version of the national anthems at the Winnipeg Jets’ home game Saturday night.
The Mully Children’s Family (MCF) Choir is in Winnipeg for the anthems, as well as a special concert on Sunday, with the help of Arvid Loewen, a Winnipeg cyclist and philanthropist who has raised millions for the African charity over the past two decades.
MCF, the brainchild of Kenyan businessman Charles Mulli, supports thousands of orphans and other vulnerable children and youths in Kenya and Tanzania, providing them with shelter, education and medical treatment, as well as vocational training for when they graduate from its programming as adults.
Director of operations, Ndondo Mulli, told 680 CJOB’s The Start that the organization is currently looking after 8,000 children across 11 campuses and has more than 35,000 graduates around the world.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
“It has been in existence for the last 35 years,” said Ndondo, daughter of the organization’s founder.
“Charles Mulli, who was six years old by then, he got abandoned by his parents. He grew up without having parents around. He had to fend for himself, he had to live in the streets … he got successful in life and became a multimillionaire in Kenya.”
Ndondo said her father felt a call to help others who were in the same situation he was as a child, and sold his business interests to create MCF.
“He sold everything he had and started bringing street children into our family. Street children, child mothers, abandoned, neglected, children who were in conflict with the law, and just giving them a family.”
Loewen, who has raised around $13 million for the organization throughout the years — mainly through cycling endeavours — said his first fundraiser took place in 2005, when he took three young people from the community on a ride across Canada on a modified tandem bike.
“That was the beginning of my relationship with them … the beginning of the exposure right across Canada,” Loewen said.
“And then I decided to leave my job at Palliser Furniture and commit my life to being an ambassador for them.
“That’s evolved into 20 years, and just last summer, I hung up my bike. I had knee replacement surgery, so the cycling part of my ministry or being an ambassador for them is over, but my passion and commitment to them has not waned at all.”
All of the children in MCF facilities, Ndondo said, participate in choirs, and a group of 22 people are in Winnipeg with the help of Loewen, who Mulli said is like a family member himself.
“This crazy guy, he’s just giving everything for children he didn’t even know. He’s raised thousands — millions — of dollars for schools, dormitories, when we’ve had floods, when we’ve had droughts.
“So much has happened, and it’s through the Canadian people that you’ve been able to be part and parcel of saving children’s lives.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
