Bags, Bags, and more Bags

On Sunday my awesome dad and I took advantage of the sunny, beautiful Colorado weather and passed out another couple hundred bags and flyers around our neighborhood. And last night, despite a nasty blister and even nastier weather, my incredible mom and I hit another few neighborhoods. Pure dedication. It definitely was not as much fun as we had on Sunday. But the snow, wind, and cold sure didn't stop us. We love the people of Haiti and are committed to bringing them as many donations as possible. Here are a few pictures of our evening: 

Again, if you have questions please email emilysgoldaward@gmail.com.

Also, check out the posts below to find out more information about child poverty and the children of Haiti, as well as the plan for my project and the progress that I have made. Thanks for visiting and reading!! Your support is greatly appreciated!

The Wheels are in Motion

Wow! Today was a great day. I had finished stapling all the flyers to the bags last night and we ended up with a total of 800-900 bags to hand out. So today, that's exactly what we did! I had some help from a group of great volunteers from a club at the high school and we handed out about half the bags around neighborhoods today. I plan on putting out another 250-300 tomorrow with my dad. Now it's up to the community to answer the call for a nation in need! Hopefully there is a giving spirit out there this week and we can now only wait to see what we have on the front porches to pick up next Saturday!!! I'm so glad that everything is coming together, thanks to the volunteers and our retail partners including discounts and donations from Safeway, King Soopers, the UPS Store, and Staples. I can't wait to see what is still to come for this project and for the children of Haiti.

I also wanted to let everyone know that last night we received a bunch of donations of backpacks, washcloths, stuffed animals, and clothing at a Girl Scout event. Several troops donated items and it's so inspiring and encouraging to get donations coming in already! Here's a photo of what we received:

Awesome!!! I am so thankful for the generosity that I have encountered so far and definitely have hope for the next couple of weeks with this project. 

Again, if you would like to contribute financially, click the "Donate" button with Paypal on the right hand side of this page to make a secure donation with a credit card. All monetary donations will be used to cover shipping costs to Haiti and to buy any extra items that we may not receive from the neighborhood collection. We want to make sure that all the kids get an incredible present when we take the bags down in March. 

And as always, thank you sooooooooo much for visiting, reading, commenting, and caring for the children of Haiti!

A Basic Presentation

Here are the slides of the presentation that I gave for a club at my school a few days ago. The slideshow is obviously tailored to my school and to the club in the last few slides, but does give a surface view of child poverty and the issues in Haiti. I will also post my presentation notes up here, which were my talking points on my presentation and really give some in-depth information. Again, this information is largely from UNICEF, so visit their website (link on the right-hand side of the page) to find out more. Thanks!

Progress: Slowly but Surely

Today we received an estimated 900 bag donations from our community partners and sponsors at King Soopers and Safeway!! Amazing. I am really impressed with my town and the generosity we have been show so far, even though we haven't even started the donation drive yet! I am currently in the process of copying flyers, and preparing the bags for next Saturday's delivery.

A few days ago I gave a presentation about child poverty and the children of Haiti to a club at my school, and I am hoping that I have a ton of volunteers to help me put up flyers around the neighborhoods next weekend. I'm praying for a great response from friends and neighbors! These kids really deserve it.

Below is a copy of the flyer that I am putting up around the community if you are interested. Basically what I'm doing is giving a quick introduction in an attempt to educate people about Haiti and poverty in developing nations, and calling out for help to collect a huge list of donations to give to the kids in Haiti. Again, if you are interested in making a monetary donation, please do so online on the right hand side with the Paypal Donate button. Any donation, no matter the amount, is greatly appreciated! It will help with shipping costs and purchasing any extra supplies that we may not gather from the neighborhood supply drive.

Thanks so much for visiting, reading, and coming back to stay up-to-date with my progress!!!

God bless,
Emily

For more information...

I am going to work on getting my slideshow and information up on this website within the next few days so keep your eyes out for that. In the meantime, I would like to share several websites for you to check out for more information on child poverty, the children of Haiti, and the efforts happening each day to make Haiti a more peaceful, hopeful nation.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is where I did a lot of my reasearch. UNICEF is a United Nations Program headquartered in New York City, that provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.

You can find out more about their world around the world on their main page at http://www.unicef.org/

or you can focus in on specifically Haiti at http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/haiti.html

They also have a page called Child Alert - Haiti, which is a briefing series that presents the core challenges for children in a given crisis location at a given time. Check it out at http://www.unicef.org/childalert/haiti/

To learn more about child poverty in general, visit http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/index_childpoverty.html

In this project I am working with Global Vision Citadel Ministries (www.gvcm.org), which is an organization that responds to the needs of Haiti. On their website, they say that:

"Our ongoing GVCM Ministry efforts are many-fold, with projects at the forefront in the areas of greatest need. For a well-rounded Christian service Ministry, GVCM encompasses the following: aggressive evangelism, education, music and worship, pastor training and seminars, bible school, revival, medical, and nutrition. GVCM is constantly involved in an ever-changing list of special projects to respond to immediate and short-term needs. The focus of these projects includes such needs as: construction, mobile medical, water sourcing, nutrition, agricultural, and deaf education."

Please check out their website to find out more about their efforts in Haiti both pre- and post-earthquake, and all the work that they are doing to help a struggling, loving, and deserving population.

GVCM is the organization that I am planning on working with over spring break on a mission trip to Haiti with an amazing group from Cherry Hills Community Church (http://www.chcc.org/). Find out more about the mission at http://www.chcc.org/dtw_haiti.aspx

An Introduction

My name is Emily, and I am a senior in high school in a suburb of Denver, CO. I am currently working on earning my Gold Award project for Girl Scouts. I have decided that my project will focus on the children of Haiti and meeting their needs that have been overlooked or disregarded. I am also hoping to work to educated the public about child poverty, the issues in Haiti, and the origins and consequences of the ever-continuing problems there. I will update this blog with the progress I make and with information for anyone out there who is interested and would like to learn more about these topics.

Please consider making a donation or contribution to this project. The money will not directly go to any organization, but will rather be used to purchase things such as school supplies and hygiene items to send to an orphanage in Haiti where the children need them. It may also be used to pay for shipping and transport of any items. If you are interested in providing financial support, use the button on the right side of this page that says Donate. It is a secure way to help out through Paypal.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about the project, please subscribe to the blog as I will update it soon with more detailed information about the specifics and timeline. Or you can comment on this post or send an email to emilysgoldaward@gmail.com

Thanks for your support and for reading! Come back soon for updates and more information.