Tag Archives: poverty

Shelley Callahan |

Without a doubt, our volunteer coordinators are the backbone of our organization. Without help from these special teachers, guidance counselors, and resource center coordinators at our affiliated schools, we couldn’t reach thousands of children living in poverty every year, helping them to receive the basic needs they require in order to focus on getting an education.

We have found that our volunteer coordinators are just as grateful for our programs as we are for their service to the children we help to support. Over the years, our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, has received many letters from our coordinators expressing just how important Children Incorporated is to them, to the schools, and most especially to children and their families.

“We would like to thank the sponsors for their support. All children want to know they’re cared about, and I can tell you that you have provided these children with lots of smiles.”

Removing barriers

“Children Incorporated remains a crucial part of our center’s mission of removing non-cognitive barriers to our students’ education. One of the highlights of working with your organization is that volunteer coordinators are given the liberty of using the Children Incorporated funds to best meet the needs of the individual children and their families. This past school year, one of my greatest blessings was to give food assistance to my families. Our winter was one of the coldest, snowiest winters that we have had in many years. School was dismissed for multiple days at a time, meaning our students were not receiving the free breakfast and lunch meals that families had counted on as they prepared their monthly budgets. Many told me that they simply ran out of funds budgeted for food because of the repeated school cancellations. Children Incorporated allowed the center to purchase food for our families. I had never had the opportunity to work with families that were more grateful in my many years as coordinator. I, too, am incredibly grateful.”

– Vanessa, Kentucky

Mrs. Wood’s vision

Our volunteer coordinators are incredibly grateful for the support of children in our program.

“From my experience over the last thirteen years with Children Incorporated, I have learned that the monetary help with clothing and immediate needs is really secondary to the emotional support that these children get from corresponding with their sponsors. They finally feel like someone cares and they are not alone in this world. The most gratifying thing that I have seen from the children being helped by this program is that a large number of them say that when they grow up and get a job, they want to sponsor a child themselves. We have actually had a few parents of children that were in the Children Incorporated program have their circumstances greatly improve, and so requested to have their children removed from the program so that needier children could benefit. Then, to our amazement, they proceeded to ask how they could become sponsors themselves. That in and of itself shows me the worth of this program, and what is being achieved is exactly what Mrs. Wood envisioned at its inception.

“Thank you, Children Incorporated and all of our sponsors, for the unbelievable difference you make in the lives of our children.”

– Alisa, Kentucky

Bringing smiles to kids’ faces

“Children Incorporated is truly a blessing to my community. It has brought so many smiles to the children’s faces. There are so many kids that benefit from this organization. Without the help from Children Incorporated programs, so many of our kids would do without.

“I am truly amazed with all the things that the sponsors from Children Incorporated do. To see these kids get a package from a ‘stranger’ that loves them is beyond them. It is breathtaking to see what just a note or card can do. I will never forget when one of my new students got a care package from their new sponsor. This girl was very hesitant to open the box. I explained to her that it was a gift from her sponsor and told her they wanted her to have what was inside. This girl, with a tear in her eye, said, ‘Why would anyone buy me something?’ My heart broke. I wanted to break down and cry. As she opened the box, she looked inside it with the biggest eyes. It was filled with clothes, art supplies, toys and snacks. She leaned over into the box and grabbed a box of snacks and said, ‘Wow! I finally got a snack for school. I can’t wait to show my daddy. He will be so excited.’

“As she went through her box of goodies, she showed me each piece and kept smiling and hopping around with excitement the entire time. She had to lay all her clothes out and look them over. She rubbed a soft footie to her face, and I truly cherished every moment she pulled something new out of her box.

“So many children are impacted in such positive ways by the sponsors in their lives. I cannot overstate the tremendous impact of Children Incorporated on our work, and most importantly on our students.”

“Putting a smile on a child’s face is a miracle in itself. A helping hand makes more of a difference than anyone can ever imagine. This program means the difference between a child being able to have their basic needs met for school and that same child doing without. We would like to say thank you for everything that you do for our kids. With your help, our kids can have a brighter future.”

– Alice, Kentucky

True heroes

“I truly believe Children Incorporated has made an impact on my students’ lives. I have seen their smiles, felt their hugs and their appreciation for gifts and letters of encouragement from their sponsors.”

– Deborah, Kentucky

“As I’ve said for years, the sponsors are the true heroes of the Children Incorporated program. It is amazing to think that strangers care enough about a child – a child they have never, and most likely will never, meet – to send help. I hope sponsors realize that the friendships and bonds that they create with these children are just as valuable as their monetary donations. Children Incorporated and its sponsors are changing the world one child at a time.”

– Stacy, West Virginia

“We would like to thank the sponsors for their support. All children want to know they’re cared about, and I can tell you that you have provided these children with lots of smiles. The Children Incorporated program has given our students a huge sense of pride as well as the knowledge that someone cares. Parents come in and say, ‘I appreciate the sponsorship so much.’… I’m surprised at how much people are willing to give, especially to children they’ve never seen in person. My words of thanks fall way short of conveying how important sponsors are in these kids’ lives.”

– Wally, North Carolina

A tremendous impact

“Thanks to the remarkable network of sponsors, we were able to provide required school uniforms, socks, underclothes, and winter coats, hats and gloves. We also provided a countless number of school supplies, personal care items, emergency food and more. In addition, through the Hope In Action Fund, with which Children Incorporated provides additional help in education and health matters, we were able to do three very different and significant things:

Sponsorship goes a long way in helping kids in need.

“At Lucy Ellen Moten Elementary School, where the neighborhood streets are not deemed safe enough for trick-or-treating, the coordinator was able to provide an in-school Halloween celebration, featuring a visit from a clown, and a pumpkin for every student. At Charles Hart Middle School, a family lost their medical coverage during a government shutdown, and one child could not receive her life-saving kidney medication. Children Incorporated stepped in and made it possible, and after several sleepless nights from worry, her mother wept with relief, knowing Callie* would be alright.

“At Cardozo Education Campus, a bright student could not read the board, and her grades were suffering. Her mother was struggling to make sense of the system that would allow her to get eyeglasses. The coordinator worked with the teacher and nurse to clarify the extent of the vision impairment, and through Children Incorporated, the coordinator was able to get Maxine* a proper eye exam and a pair of glasses.

“So many children are impacted in such positive ways by the sponsors in their lives. I cannot overstate the tremendous impact of Children Incorporated on our work, and most importantly on our students. Thank you so much, to the amazing sponsors and donors who make this possible!”

– Jennifer, Washington, D.C.

*Names changed for children’s protection.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD WITH CHILDREN INCORPORATED?

You can sponsor a child with Children Incorporated in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | En Español

At Children Incorporated, we think a lot about the basic needs that children living in poverty are going without. Providing kids with items like food, shoes, school supplies, toiletries, and clothing are at the forefront of our mission as a child sponsorship organization. Sometimes, however, when we think about ensuring that children have appropriate clothes to wear, we don’t think about how important pajamas are for kids while growing up.

“Every child has the right to a good night. Yet, thousands of children across the United States will go to sleep tonight and their bedtime will be missing something.”

Introducing the Pajama Program

The Pajama Program was founded in 2001 by Genevieve Pitturro, who discovered while volunteering to read to children at a shelter that the kids there were going to bed wearing the same clothes that they had been wearing all day, and that they didn’t have comfortable pajamas to change into. This discovery prompted Genevieve to return to the shelter with bags of new pajamas and storybooks to share with the children so that she could help ensure that they would enjoy a good night with a caring adult to tuck them in. After that, Genevieve decided to expand her project to reach children all over the United States, because she strongly believes that loving bedtimes lead to good days for children.

Pajamas help keep children warm and night as well as secure in bed.

According to the Pajama Program website, “Every child has the right to a good night. Yet, thousands of children across the United States will go to sleep tonight and their bedtime will be missing something. They may be feeling alone and afraid, in a bed that isn’t theirs, in a shelter that isn’t a home or with families who wish they could give them more. Nightly bedtime rituals like fresh pajamas and a storybook offer a consistent, reassuring ‘comfort zone’ at the end of each day.”

Offering comfort to our kids
Children Incorporated is honored to be a distribution partner for the Pajama Program, because their mission and goal to help children obtain basic needs align perfectly with ours. What’s more, because we are a pajama distributor, we are able to work with amazing community members who want help children as well!

This past year, during the holiday season, the Richmond, Virginia Chapter of the Women’s Association of Verizon Employees (WAVE) held a pajama and book drive in conjunction with the Pajama Program; and as a result of their generous efforts, we were able to provide new pajamas to both sponsored and unsponsored children enrolled in our program in Richmond, Virginia. We are so grateful for all those involved in helping provide kids with pajamas so that they can have a good, comfortable night’s sleep – every night.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA?

You can sponsor a child in Richmond in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | En Español

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world — both geographically and in terms of population. It is truly massive, sharing borders with every other country in South America except for Ecuador and Chile. The Amazon rainforest – recognized for having the greatest biological diversity on the planet — sprawls over the country’s northern half, and there are rugged mountains to the south. Despite its wealth of natural resources and beauty, Brazil suffers from staggering poverty, rising inflation, unemployment, and a lack of social development.

Growing vegetables provides food and a new skill sets for children and adults.

These issues are especially pronounced in cities like Lages, located in southern Brazil. Lages’ population — about 150,000 — has been increasing steadily as poor families from the countryside move to the city in search of employment and better lives. Their situations, however, usually do not improve; many families are forced to live in urban developments like Novo Milênio, which lack electricity, drinking water, and even sewage services. Job opportunities there are extremely limited, and area public schools are ill-equipped to provide a quality education to the ever-increasing number of students. Children roam the streets — sad, neglected, and vulnerable to threats of crime, drug abuse, and worse.

A center helping families

The families eat, share, and trade the vegetables with other families — and sometimes they sell them at a low cost to make a small profit.

The plight of these children aroused the compassion of the CARITAS – Novo Milênio Center, a nonprofit organization run by the Catholic Church. One of our affiliated projects in Brazil, CARITAS, was established to help these children and community members rise above the difficult socioeconomic circumstances from which they come.

One of the ways in which the center is helping children and their families, thanks to the support they receive from Children Incorporated, is by establishing vegetable gardens at the children’s houses in nearby neighborhoods! The families, along with their children, tend to the gardens, which teaches them all gardening skills, and helps the parents become more self-sufficient when it comes to feeding their family. The families eat, share, and trade the vegetables with other families — and sometimes they sell them at a low cost to make a small profit!

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN BRAZIL?

You can sponsor a child in Brazil in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Brazil that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | En Español

Not long ago, we received a letter from our volunteer coordinator at our affiliated project CADI (Centro de Assistência e Desenvolvimento Integral) in Brazil about one of our sponsored children, Celia*. Celia, an avid rugby player at her high school, was invited to play professionally, and was in need of support to purchase a new uniform, proper shoes, and to cover her travel expenses to and from matches. Her coordinator asked Children Incorporated if we could help, and we were happy to do so, knowing that this was the opportunity of a lifetime for Celia to pursue her dreams.

Getting to know CADI

Celia has been playing rugby since 2014.

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world – both geographically and in terms of population. It is truly massive, sharing borders with every other country in South America except for Ecuador and Chile. The Amazon rainforest – recognized for having the greatest biological diversity on the planet – sprawls over the country’s northern half, and there are rugged mountains to the south. Despite its wealth of natural resources and beauty, Brazil suffers from staggering poverty, rising inflation, unemployment, and a lack of social development. These issues are especially pronounced in Fazenda Rio Grande, a town in the outskirts of Curitiba in southern Brazil.

There, many families struggle to afford even the most basic necessities – including their children’s education-related expenses. What began in 1994 as a soccer school to motivate and assist the children of these low-income families has now become CADI – a national nonprofit organization that maintains a center for holistic development in Fazenda Rio Grande. CADI’s mission is to motivate and equip these deserving children to rise above the difficult socioeconomic circumstances from which they come, thus helping them to break the cycle of poverty. Thanks to CADI’s support, as well as that of her sponsor, Celia has been able to attend school, and to find her passion for the sport of rugby.

A letter to her sponsor

We are very proud of Celia for her accomplishments, and we wish her all the best as she continues to work hard both in school and on the rugby field.

Upon finding out that she had been asked to play on a professional rugby team, Celia wrote a letter to her sponsor explaining how she first got started playing the sport years ago.

“Dear Sponsor,

“It’s been six years since I started attending CADI, and during these years, I have participated in various activities and classes. I started playing rugby in 2014. I started playing just for fun with a friend of mine, even when many people say that it is a sport for boys. Who would have guessed that two tough girls would make history for our team? Our team keeps winning at festivals and in competitions.”

We are very proud of Celia for her accomplishments, and we wish her all the best as she continues to work hard both in school and on the rugby field.

*Name changed for child’s protection.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN BRAZIL?

You can sponsor a child in Brazil in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Brazil that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | En Español

Located in the idyllic mountainous Eastern Kentucky Coalfield, Magoffin County, where our affiliated project Salyersville Elementary School is located, holds the unfortunate distinction of having one of the highest poverty rates in the state. The coal mining industry once employed the majority of the area’s workforce. However, with the recent sharp decline of the industry, many area families have turned to small-scale and low-wage farming in order to provide for themselves; and unemployment and poverty have become intrinsic to Salyersville’s people.

Thankfully, our Volunteer Coordinator at Salyersville Elementary School, Alice, has the Children Incorporated program to rely on to help sponsored and unsponsored children receive basic needs, which not only helps kids, but their families as well. To explain the impact our program has on our sponsored and unsponsored children at the school, Alice wrote a letter to our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, about how important sponsors and sponsorship are to kids living in poverty.

Our sponsorship program has helped thousands of children in Eastern Kentucky.

Bringing smiles to kids’ faces

In her letter, Alice wrote, “Children Incorporated is truly a blessing to my community. It has brought so many smiles to the children’s faces. There are so many kids that benefit from this organization. Without help from this program, so many of our kids would do without. I am truly amazed at all the things sponsors through Children Incorporated do. To see these kids get packages from a ‘stranger’ that loves them is beyond them. It is breathtaking to see what just a note or card can do.

“Putting a smile on a child’s face is a miracle in itself. Coming from a family that has had its share of hardship, I personally know the feeling of not having material things like other kids. It makes me want to succeed as a volunteer coordinator for Children Incorporated. That helping hand makes more of a difference than anyone can ever imagine. Many kids and families take for granted the opportunity they have in being able to just go out and purchase new things for school — when other children have nothing. This program means the difference between a child being able to have their basic needs met for school and a child doing without.”

A thoughtful gift

“I would like to say thank you for everything that you do for our kids. With your help, our kids can have a brighter future.”

Alice continued, “I will never forget when one of my new students got a care package from her new sponsor. This girl was very hesitant to open the box. I explained to her that it was a gift from her sponsor, and I told her they wanted her to have what was inside. This girl, with a tear in her eye, says, ‘Why would anyone buy me something?’ My heart broke. I wanted to break down and cry. As I sat there with my heart in pieces I stood up and grabbed her in my arms and hugged her, and asked her, ‘Why not?’

“As she opened the box, she looked with the biggest eyes. It was filled with clothes, art supplies, toys, and snacks. She leaned over into the box and grabbed a box of snacks and said, ‘Wow! I finally got snacks for school. I can’t wait to show my daddy. He will be so excited.’ As she went through her box of goodies, she showed me each piece and kept smiling and hopping around with excitement the entire time. She had to lay all her clothes out and look them over. She rubbed the soft footie to her face, and I truly cherished every moment she pulled something new out of her box.

“I would like to say thank you for everything that you do for our kids. With your help, our kids can have a brighter future.”

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENTUCKY?

You can sponsor a child in Kentucky in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | En Español

The purpose of our Higher Education Fund is to assist young people enrolled in our sponsorship program with financial support so that they can attend college, university, or certification courses once they graduate from high school. The assistance they receive is one of the best ways to help break the cycle of poverty because higher education gives them the skills and training they need to make a living wage or better when they enter into the competitive workforce.

How the program works

Children Incorporated has helped sponsored children to obtain a higher education since our very beginning – but only in a small way until 2011, when we expanded the program. Volunteer coordinators in both our U.S. and International Divisions may nominate young people in their last year of secondary education. These students are considered high achievers who the coordinators believe to have the capacity and desire for higher education, and the drive to complete the certificate or degree that they aspire to obtain.

Our Higher Education Fund helps former sponsored children achieve their dreams beyond high school.

Once accepted into our Higher Education Program, these young people may pursue any course of study at an accredited institution. Their support may be renewed each term, provided they present official documentation of passing grades and continued enrollment. Today, past beneficiaries of our Higher Education Fund work in a variety of capacities – from state troopers to hairstylists, to teachers, to speech pathologists.

Funds provided by Children Incorporated, thanks to our sponsors and donors, are critically important for these young adults to be able to enter into and remain in college or university until they achieve their respective certificates or degrees. For these special Higher Education Fund recipients, the results include more favorable opportunities for them to find jobs in their communities.

Two special university students

Funds provided by Children Incorporated, thanks to our sponsors and donors, are critically important for these young adults to be able to enter into and remain in college or university until they achieve their respective certificates or degrees.

Two very special former sponsored children are currently recipients of assistance through our Higher Education Fund. Natalie* from North Carolina was nominated by her former volunteer coordinator at the high school that she attended as an “excellent, calm, and conscientious” twelfth-grader who was active in the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA). Her parents, who struggled financially to raise three children, are now bringing up a grandchild. The father does odd jobs, and the mother is a home health aide; so the support that Natalie receives from Children Incorporated is essential in her pursuit of higher education. Natalie now attends Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina. She is working on a degree in business administration, and has an A/B average.

Kathryn* from Kentucky was nominated by our volunteer coordinator at her high school because she was “a very bright girl who gets along well with her peers, and is active in band; choir; the Junior Homemakers; and the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA).” Kathryn currently attends Eastern Kentucky University, and she is working on dual degrees in English with a concentration in creative writing, and broadcasting with a concentration in film. She maintains an A/B average as well.

We are so proud of all of our Higher Education Fund recipients, and we look forward to supporting more young adults in the future in achieving their dreams!

*Names changed for individuals’ protection.

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How do I donate to the Higher Education Fund?

You can contribute to our Higher Education Fund in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and donate to our Higher Education Fund.

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