When Sonya Anderson attended Yale University in the late 1980s, it took a generous gift from an elderly woman in her community, a relative stranger, to help pay the bills. Ms. Anderson is now the Director of Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Ms, Anderson says about the woman, "This extraordinary woman, living a very ordinary life, was my savior, my dream come true."

Ms. Anderson was the Keynote Speaker at a fund-raiser for Chicago's South Suburban Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, an African-American community service group with branches nationwide. Anderson spoke to a crowd of 350 mostly African-American women gathered at the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago on Sunday afternoon. Anderson drew on her experience, as well as her involvement with Winfrey's South African school, to urge the audience to do everything possible to help poor children get educated. The group raised about $75,000 in scholarship money Sunday for college-bound south suburban students, organizers said.

Responding to recent complaints that the Leadership Academy for Girls is "too strict" Anderson said the criticism is "not necessarily founded on genuine information." "At the same time, we have these girls in our care," Anderson said. "It's their home for the vast majority of the year. "It's just like you have rules in your home. As a school, particularly as a boarding school, there has to be some kind of structure to protect the girls."
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