Giving Season: Three Opportunities

The holiday season is upon us! A time of joy, laughter, family, food, friends, celebrations and most importantly of giving! 

During the western holiday season, we gather to celebrate another year and focus on the good in a divisive world. Through the power of social media, the holiday season is filtered to reflect the modern-day Norman Rockwell painting. What we project is not always reality. The images are curated to reflect a specific image. We don’t see the reality of the constant striving, the internal debate about external appearance, skipping a bill to pay for gifts hoping that you can make it to the next month, the stress of not measuring up and the loneliness the season can bring for some people. 

The things we worry about during the holiday season, though significant to us individually, are not the same reality our students face during the holiday season and throughout the year. Our students' anxiety can come from not knowing where the next meal will come from, if they will have a place to sleep, how do they get out of that abusive situation, how will they care for their younger siblings because through no fault of their own they have been abandoned. 

Knowing our students face this type of strain, we focus each giving season on helping them through three specific moments: Giving Tuesday, our annual Holiday Fundraiser and end of year giving. 

Having celebrated the victories YOU have provided us on Giving Tuesday and our annual Holiday Fundraiser, we wanted to share a summary of how the funds raised will be implemented, why we continue to need your support for the Girls’ House and a sneak-peak into what is coming in 2020 for KCH!

Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday began in 2012 when the 92nd Street Y (NYC) and the United Nations Foundation came together to set aside a day of giving to celebrate the generosity of giving. It quickly gained popularity as iTwas widely received by thought leaders, social media, philanthropies, grassroots, mainstream media, corporations, and the White House. 

This Giving Tuesday, a goal was set to fund our basic expenses for the new Girls’ House which will be a safe place for former child slaves or restaveks.  The goal was $10,000 which $5,000 was a matched gift. Your generosity humbled us. At the end of Giving Tuesday $11,320 was raised for our Girls’ House. 

All of the thanks and praise goes to every donor and supporter as you made it possible. Every donation no matter how big or small makes a significant impact on our student population. All we can say is THANK YOU!

So how will the money be spent? Our initial goal was to cover the basics for our girls’: 

$25 per month for food x 10 girls x 12 months = $3,000.00

$50 per month for rent x 10 girls x 12 months = $6,000.00

$100 per girl for essentials* for the year x 10 girls = $1,000.00 

*Essentials defined as bed linens, cleaning supplies, personal care products 

TOTAL: $10,000.00

The balance of the funds of $1,320 will be applied toward a full year of education (school fees, books, supplies) for Claudya, one of our first young women of our Girl’s House.

Annual Holiday Fundraiser

Our annual fundraiser began in 2010, the inaugural year of Kids Haiti Connection. It was a way to connect our volunteer team and Executive Board with our loyal supporters. Over the past decade, our holiday fundraiser has become one of the cornerstones of our fundraising. 

The success of KCH is the fact that 100% of our funds raised from this event go directly to student education.

This year, our fundraiser was attended by 50 people and graciously hosted by some of our loyal donors. A buffet of Haitian delights, a jazz band trio, and a silent auction, with over 20 items donated by local businesses, made the evening an outstanding success. The evening raised a total of $11,756 which includes seeing five of our ten young women sponsored.

End of Year Giving

Our two biggest fundraising moments of 2019 were extremely successful because of the compassion and generosity of each volunteer, donor, sponsor, and partner. We have been able to raise roughly $23,076 of the annual need of $27,000 for the Girls’ House. The end of the year is upon us and it’s the last push for donations. 

Now is the time to consider sponsoring one of the girls or an end of year donation. Over the last few days of 2019 consider donating to KCH to close the gap on funding for our Girl’s House. We are so close to being fully funded! We want to guarantee them a year of safety, stability, nourishment, and education. 

BUT our goal for the end of the year is not just to raise the balance of monies needed we are looking for our supporters to spread the word about KCH. 

Over the next few weeks, we will be talking more about our Girls’ House and the vision we have for the new decade of Kids Connection Haiti. We have been given the privilege to become a part of the community in Haiti. A community that is relying on us more and more in a country that is being torn apart by daily civil unrest

KCH has a profound vision for the upcoming year and the next decade. We are excited and ask for you to share with your family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, dog walkers, and social media followers about KCH.

For now, we leave you with these thoughts: over the next year, our 10 girls will not have to worry about where their next meal will come from, where they will be sleeping, or if there is danger on the other side of the wall. Our girls will be able to focus on school, sharpening their life skills, laughing, building lifelong friendships, navigating life together and dreaming of a bright future. 

Your generosity has not only made an impact on our girls’ today and tomorrow and for the next year but their entire life. Your donation leaves an unknown legacy.