Updates: ‘partners’
PepsiCo has chosen Giving Children Hope’s We’ve Got Your Back program as its charity. PepsiCo will begin its first facility wide food drive in its Buena Park facility for the We’ve Got Your Back program on August 27th. The PepsiCo Buena Park facility has five hundred employees.
PepsiCo, Inc., a global leading convenient snacks, foods and beverage was founded in the late 1890s. From the creation of Pepsi-Cola in 1898, the company has grown and expanded its operations worldwide. As of today, the company carries twenty two different brands, which includes Frito Lay, Tropicana, Quaker and Gatorade in nearly 200 countries.
PepsiCo actively promotes healthier communities by tackling issues of obesity, affordable nutrition, malnutrition, and physical activity. However, PepsiCo believes that even with its global size and influence, partnering with different sectors is necessary in order to successfully achieve these goals.
Taking another step in reaching the company’s philanthropic goals, PepsiCo is partnering with Giving Children Hope in providing food for children and families in need. Thank you, PepsiCo!
Giving Children Hope has received an urgent request from a long time partner working in the Middle East requesting assistance for the persecuted Church in Syria. Given the fierce battles in Syria, and the serious threat for any emergency response, the shipment will be delivered to a neighboring country and then dispersed into Syria and other locations that are hosting those fleeing the fighting.
We have received requests for containers of medical supplies as well as relief items which we have begun to prepare and will be sending out by the end of August. These items will be used to serve Syrian and Iraqi refugees. While partners have already generously provided for one container, we continue to look for new partners to assist us in sending more. To learn more about this project or to help support shipments of relief items for Syrian refugees please contact Janet Valencia.
Nicaragua, a country slightly smaller than the state of New York, is considered the poorest country in Central America (Source: CIA World Fact).
Although basic medical care is obtainable, treatment for more serious medical conditions is either unavailable or only available in Nicaragua’s capital city, Managua. Advanced medical equipment, medications and supplies are also hard to find in the country (Source: Travel.State.Gov).
Jennifer Lin of DOCARE International, a non-profit medical outreach organization, asked GCHope’s assistance in providing medical supplies in one of their medical missions to Chacraseca, a small farming community East of Leon, Nicaragua. Jennifer and her team held temporary clinics and provided primary care to the community.
If your organization or church is planning to go on a medical missions trip, we would love to partner with you! Please contact Janet Valencia for more information.
Offering an entire day of service, the wonderful and fun-loving volunteers from ADP spent their time supporting Giving Children Hope’s local programs.
The team began its volunteer day by helping to sort housewares, test appliances and assemble various household items. These items were then placed into the Giving For Living and Missionary Program to benefit local nonprofit partners and the communities they each serve.
Shortly after a lunch break, the team then gathered in the warehouse to assist with the We’ve Got Your Back program to help feed children identified as homeless in Orange County. The group helped to sort canned food items, stuff backpacks with nutritious foods, prepare rolling carts for distribution and helped the GCHope team get on track for new school year.
We are so thankful for the full day of support you all gave. Thank you so much for your assistance (and a few good laughs)!
I’ve always been passionate about the way Giving Children Hope responds to disasters and crises worldwide. As a team with unique skill sets and experience levels, we work well together and respond as quickly and efficiently as possible to needs around the world. This is no different with the current needs in Somalia and the Horn of Africa regions.
Our partners need help and relief and assistance *now*. The media seems to have already forgotten these regions that need help so desperately. GCHope has not.
Ben Hansen, our friend (and former intern from Ameri-Corps), highlights the needs and situation in the Horn of Africa region in his newest guest blog post:
*Drought in Africa Leads to Famine*
_by Ben Hansen_Since the beginning of July, countries within the Horn of Africa – Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and neighboring nations – continue to suffer from a severe drought and famine. According to BBC, this crisis is “the worst in 60 years.”
Widespread famine is occurring throughout the region as uninhabitable conditions wilt crops and threaten livestock. The resulting increase in food prices and heavily controlled distribution lanes by local militia make food a scarce commodity for people of the region.
As time passes, conditions worsen throughout the Horn of Africa, effecting Somalia most severely. The nation has suffered more than 29,000 deaths since July as more than 860,000 refugees from Somalia flood camps in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, causing overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.
For the first time in nearly 30 years, the United Nations officially declared a famine in several regions of Somalia due to the worsening conditions of malnutrition and a lack of adequate humanitarian response. The UN World Food Programme expects 12 million people across the Horn of Africa to need food aid – a figure revised upward from 6 million in early July.
Giving Children Hope, in partnership with Dr. Abdul-Aziz Farah and Humanitarian Endeavoring and Life Promotion, Somalia, is sending the “desperately needed pharmaceuticals and medical supplies”:[~2643~] to address the associated health risks that refugees suffer from.
As a humanitarian aid organization that takes pride in the ability to send aid where it’s needed most, GCHope is responding as rapidly as possible to this crisis, sending necessary medical supplies requested by partners in the Horn of Africa region. GCHope is doing everything in its power to spearhead the humanitarian aid response in Somalia and needs help from volunteers willing to get involved.
Please consider playing a part in this relief effort by helping to fund upcoming shipments. To sponsor medicines, medical supplies, or a container, please contact “Sean Lawrence”:mailto:slawrence@godaid.org .
We’re asking for your partnership in this response. Alone we can only do so much, but together we can help thousands of individuals suffering.
Sonia, a partner working to better lived in the Philippines, recently came to Giving Children Hope to receive supplies from the Mission Store. While visiting, she bumped into President & CEO John Ditty. See her story:
Giving Children Hope, as a part of BB&T Insurance’s Lighthouse Project, was selected to receive a grant for nearly $7,000.
The BB&T team selected the We’ve Got Your Back program to support with this grant and volunteered to purchase food and backpacks with select GCHope staff members.
Once purchased and delivered, the food and backpacks were sent to BB&T offices where a team of 47 volunteers sorted the food and packed backpacks.
This fantastic partnership helped to pack more than 700 Backpacks, providing an additional 8,400 meals to homeless children and their families.
Thank you, BB&T for this wonderful gift and all of your hard work!
According to Nationsencyclopedia.com, health conditions in Honduras have been known to be among the worst in the Western Hemisphere. Malnutrition, impure water, poor sewage disposal, and inadequate housing are the major health problems.
Honduras recently reported a major outbreak of respiratory ailments, ranging from influenza to pneumonia. These extremely contagious illnesses, when left untreated, may develop into more serious health issues. Women and children unable to seek medical attention face life threatening fevers and complications with breathing. Men, often farmers and labor workers, are suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, fevers, chills and breathing problems.
Cindy Noblitt, Church partner, teacher and volunteer for Giving Children Hope, took measures to alleviate the staggering health conditions in Honduras.
Noblitt went to Honduras twice, once in 2010 and 2011, with a group of teenagers from Los Angeles Baptist High School to help refurbish and run a clinic, Asosiacion El Buen Pastor.
She brought large amounts of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies with her to support the Honduran clinic. Noblitt also mails several boxes of medical supplies each month to aid the clinic from back home in the United States.
The clinic’s mission is to “Strive to follow Jesus Christ’s model of serving the poor and needy. We provide our patients with quality and efficient services, sharing with them the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. We strive to create a culture of solidarity in key areas of our society in order to join the fight against poverty.”
With the help of people like Cindy and the teenagers from Los Angeles Baptist H.S., the clinic has been able to move forward with its mission in fighting against poverty in Honduras.
General Mills employees came to the Giving Children Hope facilities in Buena Park to support the We’ve Got Your Back program, a local food distribution program designed to provide backpacks filled with nutritious foods to homeless children throughout Orange County.
The volunteers from General Mills helped sort food, pack backpacks and prepare for distribution.
We are extremely grateful for the services and support of General Mills. These volunteers were a tremendous help and even provided food to help stuff the backpacks! Thank you for your help!
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A few weeks ago, Shepherd’s Way, under Giving Children Hope’s guidance and partnership, began We’ve Got Your Back San Diego!
More than 13,000 children are identified as homeless in San Diego County and this program will help to provide backpacks filled with nutritious food each and every week.
GCHope is excited about this partnership and the expansion of the program. We traveled to San Diego for the first distribution date to sit down with the men and women running the program and to pick their brains about what WGYB-SD means to them.
Check out the photos from the first WGYB-SD school as well as the video with GCHope’s new program partners!
For more information about WGYB San Diego, please visit We’ve Got Your Back SD!
