A post received from one of our American
sponsors:
Today’s post is an appeal. What I’m asking
you to consider is no more than a single drop of water in a pond, but let me
explain how that one drop can spread circles across the surface much farther
than our eyes can perceive.
Several years ago I learned from a friend
about the enormous amount of selfless, ongoing good work being done by the
Pattaya Street Kids Support Project, a charity based in England that
indirectly has made futures brighter for hundreds of Thai children. More
importantly – looking back at the ripple effect just mentioned – it will most
likely make a positive difference not only in their lives, but the lives of
their children and THEIR children.
Normally it’s not polite to post here
online with a hand out (even if it is on behalf of others), but I wanted to
pitch the possibility today of a personal reward I can heartily recommend from
my own experience: making the commitment to yourselves that you'll become a
child's school sponsor on an on-going basis. This means you'll be giving educational
stability to a child and assuring that they'll be able to complete their basic
education, giving them essential and valuable tools for a better life; both for
them and their families.
For the relatively small sum of around
$100USD per school year you provide nearly everything a child needs for school
except their lunch. If you stop to think about it, that's about 25 cents a day
over a calendar year. Thankfully very few of us can say we couldn't come up
with that. Younger children’s fees tend to be a little less than this, high
school students can be a little more. You can pay in a lump sum or monthly,
either way - either by bank draft or PayPal (which accepts credit cards).
You don't sign a contract, you just make
the decision to DO it: contact them through their web site, let him know if you
have any basic preferences (elementary school, secondary school, girl or boy,
two from a family if needed, etc.) and - just like expectant parents - you
"receive" a child. They know where the needs are most urgent, so I’d
recommend letting them arrange for you if possible. If circumstances truly
change and you can not afford the upcoming year's funds next year they'll do
their best to arrange another means of funding so the child can continue
school. One of my students was previously sponsored by a woman who could no
longer afford it due to age and health issues.
Please take a moment to look at their web
site, if you haven't already – especially the portion devoted to children
currently in need - and please note the funds many would use for the polish and
flash of a “professional” site have been channelled into something more useful!
Administrative costs are almost zero…you'll see that your funds truly DO go
where you intend them to go (board members pay their own expenses to visit
Thailand, for example), there is reliable transparency up front, and it is NOT
a religious organization with an agenda.
Registered Charity No. 1104335
100 Years From Today
It will not matter how big your bank account
was, the sort of house you lived in, or the kind of car you drove. But the
world may be a little better because your help touched the life of one child.
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