Meet the Founder

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Rattanaphorn grew up in very difficult circumstances in a small Mein village, high in the mountains of Thailand. From a young age, she was driven by a deep desire to pursue a quality education—not only to lift herself out of poverty, but also to support her family and empower others to do the same. Rattanaphorn founded Educate the Children to give back—both to her own community and to others lacking access to quality education.

For many years Rattanaphorn has donated to non-profit organizations that helped children and schools in Thailand. She realized that while she often donated to organizations, there was little transparency or accountability—she rarely knew how or where her contributions were being used. This experience inspired her to establish a nonprofit organization, Educate the Children, with a mission to provide transparent feedback to donors and partners—clearly showing how their support is helping children access quality education.

Rattanaphorn was born in a hut with dirt floors high in the remote mountains of Thailand in a farming village that had no water, electricity, or motorized vehicles. After her birth, her mother lay in a coma for three days from blood loss. There was no way to get her mother to the hospital, it was thought for a time that her mother was dead. Rattanaphorn was born in difficult circumstances without her father being around, with only the food that her mother and grandparents could raise on their own. This Mien community had migrated from China a few generations before she was born. 

Rattanaphorn now lives in Washington in the United States with a stable life and career, and thinks this is a time that she can help others.

Rattanaphorn spent much of her time with her Grandmother while her mother was farming on the side of steep hills above their Mien village. Her baby sister had leukemia, and her parents spent most of their time at the hospital before her sister died. Rattanaphorn helped farm corn, rice, and other crops on steep mountains starting at a very young age. She carried water from the stream each day to bath, cook, and boil the water to drink. She overcame hunger, a deadly snake bite, and other hardships that were part of her family’s existence in this remote mountain farming community. 

When Rattanaphorn was too young to go to school, and not helping on the farm, she would sit under the open windows of the one-room school in her community to listen to the lessons taught to the older children. She cherished books and worked hard in school once she was old enough to attend. The local school, a classroom with a single teacher for students aged 7 to 15, lacked the resources to provide a quality education. Recognizing this, Rattanaphorn’s mother, Pamprin Saefung, made the difficult decision to send her to a government-funded boarding school, even though she couldn’t afford the bus fare to get her there.

To help cover the costs of going to school, Rattanaphorn started a business in Middle School making banana chips, and other snacks, which she sold to the other school staff and children. She borrowed money from the student bank at the school to buy the equipment, bananas, and oil and then repaid her loan to the school as she earned the money from selling her banana chips and other products. She paid for her school clothes, shoes, and books with the money she made and eventually she became so successful that the school began taking her to other campuses to have her talk about how she could run a business while getting good grades in her classes.

Rattanaphorn continued to work at her business in High School to cover school expenses while at the same time getting excellent grades. She was one of her class to receive the Chumpbhot-puntip scholarship to cover her four years of college. While out of school on breaks she volunteered at her high school to motivate younger students to get a good education. While at home during the summer break, she would help on the family farm to help support her parents and three younger sisters. After earning her bachelor's degree in animal husbandry, she traveled to Finland as part of an agricultural exchange program. While there, she worked to send money home to help her family.

Once Rattanaphorn returned to Thailand, she went to work for the largest egg producing farm in the country. She lived in the company’s housing to save money so she could send more home to help support the family and improve the home her family lived in. After two years of working on a chicken farm, she made the decision to move to the United States seeking further education and better opportunities to help her parents and siblings build a home in their Mien village. She accomplished this by becoming an Au Paire for a US family, which allowed her to get a visa, pay for her flight and accommodation while earning money as she went to school. Rattanaphorn sent all her money home, eventually allowing her mother to build a beautiful home to replace the hut Rattanaphorn grew up in. 

Once Rattanaphorn completed her two-year contract as an Au Pair, she got a student visa to return to the US to attend college, this allowed her to get an associate degree and become a Dental Hygienist. She eventually married a US Citizen. Rattanaphorn worked as a dental hygienist not only to help her husband with his expenses but also to continue to send money home to her family in Thailand. 

Rattanaphorn continued with an entrepreneurial spirit by starting a healthcare staffing business in 2017 and a human resource company in 2019. In early 2020 when COVID started in the US, Rattanaphorn’s company, HRSupport, was asked by the University of Southern California research department to help with one of the first COVID-19 morbidity studies in the US. Her company successfully completed this project by May 2020. At this time, COVID was spreading across the US, and COVID testing availability was desperately needed. 

Rattanaphorn’s company, HRSupport, with the help of her husband and his son, who has an MBA and Law degree from the University of Chicago, was able to navigate the regulatory process to become a certified COVID test importer and administrator in the US. Rattanaphorn, as CEO of HRSupport, was able to start COVID testing in California and, by June 2020 became the exclusive COVID testing company for the State of Illinois, testing the Illinois Governor and his administration along with communities throughout the state. In California and Illinois, HRSupport focused on COVID testing in underserved communities including nursing homes, prisons, jails, inner cities, farms to name a few. 

Once COVID vaccines were available the State of California and the State of Illinois turned to HRSupport to help them administer vaccines to their communities. Rattanaphorn’s company did such an outstanding job administering COVID tests and vaccines they became the #1 preferred vendor to administer COVID vaccines to underserved communities in California and Illinois. Overall HR Support administered over 5 million COVID tests and over 500,000 COVID vaccines over a two-year period. 

Rattanaphorn’s other healthcare company is now staffing hospitals across the US with professional healthcare workers. Between the two companies, they have employed over 4,000 people since 2019, most of them during the COVID pandemic. Rattanaphorn is now pivoting HRSupport to help with human resources for small to medium size healthcare organizations. 

Rattanaphorn’s real estate company manages homes that are rented to families and a ranch leased to a non-profit organization that educates children from the inner cities about animals and farming. She also leases property to a green energy company that is helping communities worldwide become energy independent by converting their waste to electricity and biogas for cooking, operating vehicles, and generators.

Rattanaphorn has not only helped herself and family get out of poverty she has helped thousands of others by giving them jobs. She has also helped to give COVID tests and vaccines to millions of underserved people, helping to save lives and stem the tide of COVID in susceptible communities. Her healthcare company is helping patients in hospitals across the country. She is now turning her attention to helping children around the world get a good education so that they can make a difference in their future, their families’ future and humanity’s future.