Our History

The establishment of Crossbridge Africa Foundation was inspired by the lifelong compassion, determination, vision, and impact of Patrick Okoye. From his teenage years in Nigeria, Patrick was deeply moved by the crises of poverty, displacement, and lack of access to basic needs in rural communities, and nurtured a determination to bring relief to those in crisis.  His first outreach, sharing milk with hospital patients on Christmas Day in 1991, sparked a mission of service that has guided him ever since.

Ordained as a Catholic priest in 2008, Patrick dedicated part of his stipend and financial gifts from friends to food aid, medical support, and youth empowerment. He later pioneered agricultural ventures in rural Edo State, creating jobs and funding community programs, proving that enterprise could sustain humanitarian impact.

After relocating to the United States in 2024, Patrick continued to mobilize his local partners to expand outreaches in rural Enugu State communities, launching food distribution, medical programs, and digital education initiatives. This meagerly funded effort has been barely able to make a minimal impact in the face of the fast-growing population, increasing poverty level, and yawning gap in social service delivery in Nigeria.

 Determined to sustain and expand this social impact but hindered by a lack of funds and other technical resources, and the limitation of solely donor-dependent charity, Patrick decided to adopt the Social Enterprise model of social intervention. This model aims to generate revenue through sales of products and services, dedicating a portion of profits to healthcare, nutrition, and education, and reinvesting the rest to grow and sustain the enterprise. The initiation of this model is still stalled due to a lack of funds and other resources.

This left Patrick and his desperately needed aid program stalled and unable to make a greater impact.