Updates: ‘GCHope’
The women of Allied PRA were able to donate some time this week on the hottest day of the year so far! The did a fantastic job helping with our backpack program, packing backpacks and sorting food supply. During their time with us, they prepared backpacks for twelve of our schools, serving over 1,000 children in Orange County who would otherwise be without nutritional foods. We are very grateful for their service!
Dear Friends,
There is a lot happening at GCHope! We want to lay some prayer requests before you and ask that you lift us up in prayer.
TRAVEL - Founder and Chairman of the Board John Ditty and Logistics Coordinator Janet Valencia are traveling to Jordan and Lebanon. Please pray for:
- Safety and health in their travels.
- Wisdom in assessing GCHope’s role in continuing to help Syrian refugees.
- The refugees that they will be working and meeting with as they travel through the regions.
Warehouse Manager Marius Marza will also be traveling this month; he will be traveling to his home country of Romania with Women for World Health. Lift up their team in prayer for:
- Safety and health in their travels.
- The medical work that this team will be doing throughout Romania.
WE’VE GOT YOUR BACK - We have an urgent need for food to finish out the school year and keep distribution going throughout the summer. Please pray for donations, as well as the funding needed to sustain the program.
HOPE 20/20 - Our 20th anniversary celebration is going strong. Please pray for the existing communities of Uganda, familes in the Middle East, Romania, Fullerton, Syrian refugees, Military families, and Belize, as well as all the communities we will be serving in the near future.
MEDICAL CLINIC - The Buena Park Community Clinic is expanding! Please pray that the necessary funds and labor needed to complete this project will be provided.
FAMILIES - Two of our staff members have babies on the way — Communications Coordinator Cathy Baek and her husband are expecting a baby in June, and Development Coordinator Drew Bryson and his wife are expecting a baby in August. Please pray for the health of both mothers and children.
GIVING CHILDREN HOPE - Please pray for the funds, product, and other resources we need to keep GCHope moving forward. Pray that the necessary partners, donors, and funders are brought to us and that we can wisely and efficiently make connections and use these resources to sustain our mission.
Thank you for your prayers.
Sincerely,
Giving Children Hope Staff
Last week, GCHope sent its sixth container of relief to Syrian refugees. This container, our fifth container in partnership with Bouchebel Consultants, is going to aid refugees who have fled to camps in Lebanon.
The container held donations from multiple donors, including Free City, World Vision, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, World Bed, Seba Med, and TIPS South Hill Academy, as well as others. It included items such as cookware, clothing, hygiene, blankets, and World Beds.
GCHope Founder and Chairman of the Board, John Ditty, and Logistics Coordinator, Janet Valencia, will be traveling to Jordan and Lebanon to meet with partners and see the distribution of previous containers.
Visit our Hope 20/20 page to see how you can continue to help Syrian refugees, one of our Hope 20/20 communities for 2013.
On Saturday, May 18, Wienerschnitzel in Buena Park is hosting a “Day of Hope” benefiting Giving Children Hope.
Guests who bring in canned food items between 9 am and 10 pm will receive raffle tickets for prizes. In addition, 20% of all purchases made with the attached flyer will go directly to GCHope.
Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to support GCHope and the We’ve Got Your Back program! We’ll see you there!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BUENA PARK, Calif.– Giving Children Hope (GCHope), a nonprofit organization based in Buena Park, is providing 50 underprivileged children with new bicycles in partnership with Chick-fil-A and Golden State Foods Foundation.
Children from GCHope’s “We’ve Got Your Back” program were selected to participate and build a brand new bike. Each child, ages 10-16, enrolled in the program was asked to write an essay detailing how the “We’ve Got Your Back” program helps them in school and makes a difference in their family’s lives; 74 essays were submitted in total.
In his essay, Bryan stated the program “helped me in school by giving me breakfast in the morning.” Jasmine is thankful for the backpack because “I don’t have to try and learn on an empty stomach.” Karen shared, “When I grow up and work, I’m going to donate food for kids like me.”
GCHope volunteers will attend the “Build-A-Bike” event to help children assemble their bicycles. Golden State Foods Foundation will also provide safety training, helmets and bicycle locks, and a bike tune-up to ensure all bikes are assembled properly.
In addition to children from “We’ve Got Your Back,” 25 children from Boys & Girls Club Cypress will also receive bikes at this event.
The “Build-A-Bike” event is hosted by Chick-fil-A Buena Park at 8161 La Palma Ave., Buena Park, CA 90620. For more information about this event or to volunteer with “We’ve Got Your Back,” contact Christine Sanchez at 714-523-4454.
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“We’ve Got Your Back” is a weekend nutrition program created by Giving Children Hope for elementary, junior high and high school students in Orange County’s school districts who have been identified as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Currently, there are more than 28,000 children in Orange County’s elementary schools identified as homeless. Every week, Giving Children Hope provides food to 1,500 students and their families through “We’ve Got Your Back.”
Giving Children Hope is a faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty domestically and abroad through disaster relief, health and community development, vocational training and advocacy. For more information, visit www.gchope.org.
Contact:
Jessica Rickerts
Director of Administration
jrickerts@gchope.org
(714) 523-4454 Ext. 114
We were very excited to host team members from Target stores throughout the area. We have been working to find a time that works for everyone and finally made it happen yesterday. They did a great job in all three of our main volunteer projects. From sorting medical supplies for distribution to a clinic in Haiti to packing backpacks full of food for children in need throughout Orange County to arranging donations of household supplies for our hundreds of partner agencies. They did a great job, always with a smile. We were very grateful for their help and are looking forward to having them serve with us again soon.
In addition, we are also the recipient of a Target Community Grant for $5,000 which they brought yesterday! Thanks Target for giving your time and support to Bring Health to Kids in Crisis!
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A very big GCHope “Thank You” to the team members from Bank of America who were able volunteer in our We’ve Got Your Back program yesterday. Over 65 volunteers were able to pack over 750 backpacks for Orange County Children in need. We always appreciate teams like theirs where we have to work to keep them busy. We are looking forward to seeing you all again in October or hopefully even sooner!
Aid Africa and Giving Children Hope held a birthing kit event at GCHope’s warehouse, where 65 volunteers from ages 7 – 70 helped assemble 1,000 birthing kits. These kits will go out to clinics and villages to save the lives of mothers and their infants.
A kit only costs $10 and can potentially save two lives. It only takes a few simple items to make a huge difference in preventing infections, which is the leading cause of death during child birth. The volunteers assembled kits containing: gloves, soaps, blade, sanitary cord (to tie the umbilical cord) and a clean sheet. The kits also included baby caps and sanitary napkins.
In Northern Uganda and Pakistan, kits are already being used at clinics, where midwives are trained in the importance of sanitary and safe birth delivery. Many lives have already been saved and it will bring education and hope, as well as promote sustainability in these growing communities.
Aid Africa is a non profit 501c3 working to bring help and hope to the poorest of the poor in Northern Uganda. Aid Africa’s vision is to rebuild 1,000 sustainable communities by providing clean water, efficient stove, life-saving health care, education and reforestation.
If you would like more information about birthing kits or would like to sponsor one, please go to Aid Africa’s website.
Watch the video of the event below:
Video by: Agent Chill Entertainment LLC
Camera & Editor: Candice Rusch
Camera: Brian Byrd:
This blog post was contributed by our Director of Community Programs, Christine Sanchez.
I got a phone call from our receptionist. She tried paging Paul and America but neither were available. There was a woman in our lobby inquiring about our We’ve Got Your Back weekly food distribution program. She has eight children at home, though five are in college. Of her school aged children, one is in high school, one a 6th grader and one 3rd grader who is severely autistic, thus home schooled.
Her husband just found a job after several months of unemployment. His income is $3000 per month – but with 8 children. She does not want her college students to work; she understands the value of a college degree and knows that is the only way out of poverty. Half of her husband’s income goes to rent, and the other half pays the bills. What little is left goes to food. She’d love to work to help her family but is forced to stay home to care and educate her autistic child.
I gave her a tour of our WGYB packing area and explained that we are currently struggling to maintain weekly food distribution to the 47 schools we are currently committed to. She saw for herself that many of our food shelves were bare. I gave her information on two local food banks that might be able to help her make ends meet on a more regular basis. She was grateful for the information.
Yet, I could not let her walk away. The Lord sees our necessities on a daily basis. Could He have sent her to us? Perhaps. At GCH, we often work under that premise. So, before she left, I gathered some items, ones which were too big for our backpacks, that I knew would help her large family. America and I pulled together the 6 lb cans we could find: tomato sauce, peaches, baked beans and green beans. We found a 10 lb bag of pinto beans, a gallon of apple juice and a gallon of apple cider. Since we cannot put glass items in the backpacks, we gave her two cans of pasta sauce and some pasta. All in all, we donated a retail value of groceries of $87.92. She was overwhelmed with gratitude.
Today, I am grateful we were able to help this family in some small way.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11).
Thanks again to our friends over at ADP! There were at our warehouse on Tuesday to help with the packing of our backpacks as well as ensuring that the food supply we send to our children each week are of the best quality. If you look back through a couple of our older posts (here and here) you will see that ADP has been sending us volunteers for quite some time now. Thanks for being faithful supporters of our efforts and for Bringing Health to Kids in Crisis!
