About Me

My name is Julie Manuel and this is my 26th year of teaching, but and my 3rd year here at Falcon Bluffs teaching ELA. I have a husband and 4 grown kids. All 4 of my children attended Falcon Bluffs, so I am thrilled to be following their footsteps. My oldest child is a teacher, 2nd is a nurse, 3rd is a teacher in Thailand, and the youngest is an artist. They are all officially launched! I am also a grandmother to three beautiful babies: Berkley 3, AJ 2, and Brooks is 14 months. They are a daily source of happiness!

My greatest joy is spending time with my family. Besides that I am quite the adrenaline junky. I enjoy skydiving, canyoning (learned this in New Zealand), marathon swimming, traveling to remote locations, and swimming Alcatraz every year. When trying to act like a grandma, I enjoy hiking and skiing around our beautiful state, of which I am a native. My greatest passion however is AFRICA. Nine years ago my former school (Shaffer) and I started a school in Kenya. I am excited to have brought this project to Falcon 2 years ago. Our school is located in a Maasai village within the Great Rift Valley. It started with 5 kids in a chicken coop, and today we have 147 amazing kids that attend our school, Ronesa Academy. Each year we do a, "Coins for Kenya," drive and build the next classroom as those kids move up to the next grade level. Today we have 8 classroom, 8 Maasai teachers, a feeding, animal, gardening program, and even a boys/girls futbol (soccer) team. I take groups with me every summer to work at our school, our orphanage, and within the greater community. We go there hoping to change lives, and truly we do. However, it is our lives that are changed forever! Maybe you will be part of the next group to go?! If you'd like to learn more about all that we do in Kenya, visit our website at: ronesa.com