Friday, January 2, 2015

A Beautiful Idea - Sponsor a Child

 My husband Rick and I have been sponsoring Paola, through Children International (CI) for 5 months now, and it has been such a positive experience for us that we decided to sponsor a second child, Luis.
 

I chose this organization because it had one of the lower sponsorship fees ($28/month) and we felt we could afford this amount. I also liked the fact that CI is a secular, not a religious organization – I believe that a person's spiritual beliefs are very personal, and would not want our sponsored children to have an organization's religion forced upon them in order to receive benefits.
 

I appreciate the fact that CI encourages letters between the child and the sponsor, and makes it very easy for the Sponsor to write a letter "online" and attach photos if desired. CI then prints out my letter and photos and delivers them to our child! It is such a thrill to receive a letter from Paola or Luis, and feel our "heart connection" across the miles. CI also encourages visits between the child and Sponsor, and we hope to visit our sponsored kids in Mexico in the next year or two.
 

It's important to me that an organization provide not just a "handout" but a "hand up" to a child in poverty. CI has Community Centers in each of the areas it serves, which allow it to provide many services to the kids, including nutritional, medical, dental and educational programs. As the children grow up, CI offers an array of programs for youth/teens to help them break the cycle of poverty, and to become leaders in their community: https://www.children.org/youth-development
 

A program CI offers that benefits me personally is a social networking site for sponsors called “My Social Center”, which allows us (the Sponsors) to communicate with each other, sharing letters and photos from our sponsored kids, asking questions of each other, encouraging each other, and meeting new friends, who share our values, care and concern for children and their families over the world.
 

Choosing to sponsor a child through Children International is one of the best decisions I have ever made - I am happy and proud to be part of their wonderful work!

No comments:

Post a Comment