Help Make Christmas Happen in Swaziland!
Sorry that we haven’t been blogging much – but a LOT has been happening the past couple of months for The Sound of Hope! We’ve been busy relocating the organization from Michigan to Alabama, as well as re-vamping our website. It may not look different, but we had a lot of problems with “bugs” in our old site, and thanks to the hard work of our good friend/computer genius Mark Stratmann, we should be able to leave these problems in the past! The new site is also more intuitive when it comes to social media, so you should find it easier to “like” blogs on facebook, as well as share them to your social media outlet of choice (twitter, facebook, google+, etc).
The most exciting news though, is what’s been happening with our overseas partnerships! We have some incredible updates about our sweet girls in India, a new project in Swaziland, and a HUGE announcement about The Promised Land Project that we’ll be sharing in the coming week. But first –
We need your help to make Christmas happen in Swaziland!
The vast majority of the precious children in Swaziland will not celebrate Christmas this year. 95% of them will not get a gift at all, or even eat a special meal on Christmas Day. When I think of how lavish our Christmas celebrations are in America, I’m appalled at the difference. Most families spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on gifts for their children, decorations for their home, and every kind of delicious treat you can imagine! Yet these precious children in Swaziland will go without…. unless we do something about it!
Our partners in Swazi are planning 30 different Christmas parties at the 30 carepoints they serve. The children who come to these carepoints are orphans or vulnerable children whose lives are deeply affected by poverty and HIV/AIDS. They face hardship, death, and disease on a regular basis, but at these Christmas parties, they are free to just be a kid! The parties will be a time of celebration, games, and songs for the children to participate in. Each child will eat a good meal, with some chips, fruit, and donuts as an added treat. They will also each receive a special gift, and the school age children will receive a backpack too! As you can see from their smiles below, this is the highlight of their year!
But this won’t happen without your help! The carepoint we sponsor through The Sound of Hope is called The Anchor, and it is in Nsoko – one of the most impoverished areas in the country. Our partners are expecting at least 50 children to attend (but say it could be up to 100. You just never know who will show up when good food and games are involved!) They refuse to turn any child away – so it’s up to us to be sure they have the funds they need to make every single child feel special this Christmas!
It costs approximately $13 to provide a meal, fruit, dessert, and a gift for each child. Just $13 will let a little boy or little girl know that they are loved and special this Christmas.
Our goal is to raise at least $650 to cover The Anchor Christmas Party. Anything above and beyond that amount will insure that any extra children who show up are provided for, or it will fund another Christmas Party at another carepoint. PLEASE give to this cause! Consider giving $13 in honor of each of your children, or for each person on your Christmas list. It’s such a small amount, but it will make a big difference to these sweet kids!
CLICK HERE TO DONATE NOW!
*The Christmas parties will run from November 8th – November 30th, so this fundraiser will end on November 5th.
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