This document discusses Kids Alive International, a Christian non-profit organization that works to help children in need around the world. It provides statistics on the dire situation faced by many children globally, such as lack of access to clean water, homelessness, and malnutrition. The author held a bake sale fundraiser for Kids Alive, educating attendees about the organization and the issues children face. While the bake sale itself did not generate much profit, the author believes greater awareness of the group's mission was raised.
1. Save the World with Cookies My part in helping to change the lives of children all over the world.
2. The Staggering Facts According to Kids Alive International: Each day 25,000 children die. Most of these deaths are easily prevented. 150 million children are homeless and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. 130+million children do not attend school. Most of those children are girls and millions more receive hardly any education.
3. 1 in 5 children does not have access to clean drinking water. 1 in 3 children are grossly malnourished. ¼ of all children in the world live in poverty. These numbers are huge and yet, sadly, the number of people aware of these issues is incredibly small.
4. These facts are heartbreaking and many don’t have a clue that these numbers are so high and the frequency of these events are increasing, but you can help to make a difference. It is easy to live comfortably here in the US and take care of our children and siblings, etc., but imagine if your younger brother or your son was one of the 5 without water. Or your daughter was one of the 150 million who didn’t even have a roof over her head. You don’t want to imagine it, so why would you want to imagine any one else’s child that way. Educating yourself is the first step.
5. Kids Alive International Kids Alive is a Christian based, non-profit organization that has dedicated itself to saving children around the world and lowering the terrible statistics. They started out in China in 1916 when two missionaries starting taking in homeless children and caring for them (kidsalive.org). Since then, they have spread all around the world including several countries in Africa, Romania, Tawain, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Haita, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
6. Kids Alive Cont. Kids Alive serves these children in a number of ways: Residential Homes: Groups of orphaned children come to live in a home with 2 parents and experience for the first time what it means to have a home and be loved. Schools Care Centers: Are for the residual children and families that cannot live in the residential homes. They are provided with healthy meals, food, love, and support for both the children and their parents or grandparents. Medical Clinics Community Outreach Keeping Families Together: Allows families to stay together and Kids Alive teaches parents and grandparents how to properly care for their children, helps them to clothe and feed them, and educate them so they can become self-sustaining.
7. Where do you come in? You can visit the Kids Alive website by going to www.kidsalive.org. Once there you will have the opportunity to read the facts on these children, see the countries where Kids Alive is working, read their mission statement and much more. You can donate to a particular cause, sponsor a child or just read about what the ministry is doing and educate yourself so that you can educate others. I hope that they will touch your heart as they have touched mine. Now, here’s the part about the cookies…..
8. Save the World with Cookies I will be holding a bake sale for Kids Alive Ministry at the Pi Kappa Alpha Mud Volleyball event. All proceeds from Volleyball will be donated strictly to the ministry as well. The bake sale will be held on May 7, 2011 at the Pike Mud Volleyball event in Sanger, Ca. (see Facebook page for directions). Please help to save these children by participating in volleyball AND by eating all you can of cookies, hand-dipped chocolate covered strawberries, fudge and more.
9. The Results The following slides were posted as a link on Facebook and sent to all the guests on the Pike Mud Volleyball invitation on Facebook. I also posted it as a link on my page for the entire week prior to the event. I had posters up at my bake sale listing the statistics for the children in third world countries and included little fliers in each bag of cookies that was sold that listed the same. I talked to everyone who came up to the bake sale table to inquire about goodies about what the ministry was supporting and how their dollar or two was going to help. I wanted people to be educated about where they were donating their money, and even if they didn’t buy cookies, I wanted them to be able to walk away with knowledge about what really goes on in our world.
10. The Goods I baked chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, 2 types of fudge, rice krispie treats, mini-cheeseckes AND I hand-dipped over 2 dozen chocolate covered strawberries. My intention was not only to sell baked goods, but to talk to people about the ministry and about the truth of the lives of children in third world countries. The money end of the bake sale was not too great, but I spread a whole lot of information and made people more knowledgeable as a whole on what’s really going on with children in our developing world.
11. Price of ingredients: $60 Time spent baking: 8 Hours Time spent selling: 6 Hours Total Profit: $40 The feelings of knowing that kids would be helped and that more people in the world knew about the situation which could potentially lead to life changing events: PRICELESS!