Green the Season: Give more, with meaning

I've always said that I'd rather my kids grow up to be broke and happy, traveling the world to help others than becoming lawyers or architects or plastic surgeons. I'd rather see them be Doctors Without Borders than doctors with fancy cars, which is why my heart just melted the other day when Fletcher asked if we could go to Haiti to help the sick people there.

We were listening to NPR on the way to school as they talked about the cholera epidemic happening in Haiti right now. Fletcher asked why people were sick and dying, so a long conversation ensued about the earthquake, homes being destroyed, massive amounts of people living in tents, not having clean water to drink and how disease spreads.

After our trip to New Orleans to help people this summer, he thought we should just hop in the van and drive to Haiti like we drove to New Orleans (which led to another long conversation about geography). In the end, we decided that we should take some money from our piggy banks and give it to an organization that is helping Haitians.

Coincidentally, I received a newsletter from our adoption agency, Bethany, this week. They now offer a catalog of gifts available for purchase in different countries where they work, including gifts for Haiti.

I think the kids have settled on buying a chicken to donate for $20. (Grandma has offered to add any extra money they need.)  Fletcher is a little stressed about how the chicken will get to Haiti, but I've assured him it will be okay.

Bethany also enables you to buy things like shoes for children in Guatemala or - my personal passion - food for families in Ethiopia. We've all seen the photos and heard the stories about starving children in third world countries but when you're been there and seen it first hand, when you have children who have personally suffered from malnutrition on the streets of Ethiopia, it becomes so much more real. Through Bethany, you can feed a family for one year for $240.

Another organization near and dear to my heart is Ethiopian Orphan Relief, which is run by some of my favorite adoptive moms (several here in Colorado). EOR works hard to improve the lives of orphans in Ethiopia. They want to ensure that every child there has "a warm bed, a loving influence, and a sufficient education to better their lives."

In Ethiopia, the phrase "yezelalem minch" means "everlasting spring". Our adoption agency works closely with an organization called Yezelalem Minch in Addis Ababa to help children orphaned through HIV/AIDS, as well as supporting Ethiopian families who are fostering orphans in their homes. They provide food, clothing, medical supplies and education - basic needs that an enormous number of Ethiopian children go without.

We had the pleasure of meeting Nesibu who runs YM in 2008 when he made a trip to the US. He and his wife run the organization and do so much to care for the children there. But it was another adoptive mom from our agency who has started a drive here in the US to get sponsors for each and every child at YM. For $30 per month, you can sponsor a real live child - not just a face in a pamphlet - and provide food, clothing, medication and school supplies. Check out YM's Facebook page and commit to sponsoring an orphan, purchasing a YM t-shirt, or just making a small donation.



For more philanthropic gifts, check out this post from last year's Green the Season series. Let's teach our children to take care of others who are less fortunate.