There are two details about Dr. Innocent and Victoria Ononiwu that, once you hear them, you cannot forget: they each grew up as the fifth of seven children in Nigeria — and they each gave everything they had long before they had anything to give.
Dr. Innocent and Victoria Ononiwu — photographed in York, Pennsylvania
Two Lives, One Beginning
Dr. Innocent Ononiwu was born and raised in Oka, Nigeria, the fifth of seven children. His family did not have wealth, but they had something harder to come by: the kind of faith that shapes a person's whole life. He grew up knowing that the world was bigger than his circumstances — and that he was called to meet it.
Victoria Ononiwu — Vickie, to those who love her — was also born and raised in Nigeria, also the fifth of seven children. The symmetry is striking. Two people from similar modest beginnings, both shaped by the same culture of perseverance and faith, who would meet across a university campus and build something neither of them could have imagined alone.
They met at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria — Dr. Innocent studying pharmacy, Victoria pursuing her bachelor's and master's degrees in French. A friendship deepened. A marriage followed. And from that marriage, a mission unfolded that would span five decades, two continents, and more lives than either of them has ever counted.
The Happiness Club: Where It Started
Long before there was a foundation, there was a children's club in Ile-Ife, Nigeria — and a young man named Innocent with a vision to see children encounter God in a real way.
In the 1970s, Dr. Innocent founded the Happiness Club — a children's ministry that would become a spiritual home for many young people in Ile-Ife. The children who passed through those doors did not simply attend a Sunday school program. They were mentored, loved, challenged, and shaped. Many of them still write to Dr. Innocent today, addressing him by the same name they used as children: Uncle Innocent.
Those children, now grown, serve as pastors, missionaries, doctors, and community leaders across Nigeria and around the world. The Happiness Club was not a program. It was a generation.
When the Ononiwus moved to Port Harcourt, the Happiness Club moved with them. When they immigrated to the United States, they brought the same spirit to Maryland, then to Chesapeake, Virginia — where they served faithfully at the Redeemed Christian Church of God — and eventually to York, Pennsylvania, where they now call home. The names of the ministries have changed. The mission never has.
The Journey to America
Biomedical research is the reason the Ononiwu family came to America. In 2003, Dr. Innocent accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at Howard University in Washington, D.C. — the beginning of an academic journey that would include three fellowships in Pharmacokinetics, Neuropharmacology, and Cancer Pharmacology, and span 33 years of teaching in medical and pharmacy schools.
Victoria and the rest of the family followed in 2004. They landed in Maryland and built a life — slowly, faithfully, and with the particular courage that belongs to immigrants who arrive not knowing exactly how it will work out, but trusting that it will.
Dr. Innocent went on to serve as the founding coordinator of the BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences program at Elizabeth City State University, as a visiting scholar at UNC Chapel Hill School of Pharmacy, and as an adjunct assistant professor at Howard University College of Pharmacy. He is the author of four books. His most recent, Children's Ministry in a Digital Age (Trilogy Christian Publishing, 2024), brings his TEEM-ED model of children's ministry to a new generation of leaders.
Building Aloft: Proof of What They Believe
The Ononiwus did not just talk about the power of entrepreneurship. They built it. Aloft Healthcare — a Maryland DDA-certified provider of residential and community-based services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities — is the evidence of what two determined immigrants can build from a conviction and a calling.
Victoria serves as CEO and co-founder. She is a registered nurse with thirteen years of experience, holding a Master of Science in Nursing, a Master of Arts in French, and a Master of Business Administration in Healthcare. Dr. Innocent serves as Medical Director and co-founder, bringing his pharmacological expertise and decades of clinical experience to bear.
Aloft Healthcare now employs more than 30 people and serves some of the most vulnerable members of the Maryland community. It was not built because they had it easy. It was built because they had seen, firsthand, what was possible when someone believed in you enough to give you a start.
That is precisely what the foundation's entrepreneurship pillar is built on: the Ononiwus know what it is to need someone to believe in you. And they are now in a position to be that someone.
York, Pennsylvania — and What Comes Next
About seven years ago, Dr. Innocent and Victoria settled in York, Pennsylvania, where they remain deeply embedded in their church and community. They have five children and five grandchildren. They serve. They mentor. They give.
The foundation is not the beginning of their generosity. It is simply the first time their generosity has had a name and a structure. It is the vessel for everything they have already been doing — and the vehicle for everything they still intend to do.
Three pillars. Two nations. One calling: to empower lives and inspire futures — for children who need the gospel, for entrepreneurs who need a chance, and for scientists who need support.
Be Part of What They're Building
You don't have to have grown up as the fifth of seven children to understand that some things in this world are worth giving toward. This is one of them.