Our Story
NKirote (NK) and Mark met in February of 2002, at a mutual friend's birthday party in San Diego. NK was 10,000 miles from her home in Meru, Kenya. And she was studying on scholarship to complete her MBA in Strategic Management. Needless to say, she's an intelligent, hard-working woman with a vision for her life and the world.
Mark has been in the action sports business all his life where his primary purpose is to simply put smiles on kids faces with the products he develops. It never occurred to him to travel anywhere there wasn’t concrete to skateboard on, or snow, or surf. When NK took him to Kenya and Tanzania in the spring of 2004, his perception of the world was altered forever.
They timed their marriage to coincide with NK’s mum visiting the US for the first time. NK and Mark wanted their wedding to be meaningful. They decided that the best way to celebrate their union would be to financially support the most motivated and needy girls from their mom’s boarding school, Mwalimu Academy. So they signed up for a different sort of registry. But who would have known that giving money away would be so hard!?
Starting a non-profit organization post 9/11 that sends money to a country that has about 10% Muslim population is more difficult than you might think. All Mark and NK wanted to do was enable ambitious girls without resources to stay in school. Fortunately, with a little research and some great connections, they were able to launch Now That You Know™ with all the proper government filings. Their wedding was just the beginning of their commitment to each other and a life-long commitment to educating girls around the world.
Know That You Know founders, NKirote and Mark Schmid