Make a Difference!

Join Metro Parent’s 2009 Holiday Giving Campaign

Last year Metro Parent staff and readers started a holiday tradition. We banded together to make a difference in the lives of local families with our Home for the Holidays campaign. Partnering with JOIN, a local nonprofit that helps get homeless families and individuals off the streets and into permanent housing, we were able to raise enough money ($6,300 total!) to move two families into stable environments – and keep them there. (See “How Our 2008 Holiday Giving Campaign Made a Difference” on page 26 of the November issue at this link.)

This year we’re hoping to repeat that effort by once again raising the money to get a homeless family off the streets through JOIN. In doing so, we’re helping some of our neediest neighbors.

We’d also like to make a difference in the lives of the “poorest of the poor” overseas by joining with Mercy Corps to build a health clinic in an impoverished Third World country. By doing so, we would almost certainly be saving lives.

“In many communities where Mercy Corps works, health services are either too far away or nonexistent,” explains Caitlin Carlson, communications officer for Mercy Corps. Our collective effort to fund a health clinic, “can have an immediate and lasting affect on communities lacking even the most basic health services,” adds Carlson. (Learn more about Mercy Corps and its new Action Center on page 30 of the November issue at this link.) Scroll to the bottom of this page for more details on Mercy Corps’ Health Clinic “Mercy Kits”.

The cost to get a homeless family into permanent housing through JOIN is $2,500. The cost to fund a health clinic through Mercy Corps is also $2,500. Metro Parent will match our readers’ donations up to the first $1,250 for each effort.

Our good friends at Activistas (www.activistas.us) are partnering with us. Activistas’ mission – of connecting local parents to resources and information that can empower them to make a difference – seems a perfect fit for this campaign.

Together, all of us can touch the lives of our needy brothers and sisters, both locally and far away.

To donate toward the funding of a Health Clinic with Mercy Corps, click here:
mercycorps.org/metroparent

To donate toward giving a local family a “Home for the Holidays” through JOIN, click here:

We’ll keep you posted on our progress!

Information about Mercy Corps’ Health Clinic “Mercy Kit”:

No community can thrive without access to basic medical care. Without it, preventable and easily treatable diseases bring unnecessary tragedy and hardship. Mercy Corps works in isolated communities to help families and children gain access to the facilities, medicines and expertise they need to stay healthy.

Why Help Is Needed

Good health is the foundation for long-term development. But one in seven children worldwide lack access to even the most basic health services, according to UNICEF. This lack of quality medical care puts children and expectant mothers especially at risk and allows preventable diseases like tuberculosis to reach pandemic levels.

Mercy Corps In Action

In places such as Pakistan and Guatemala, Mercy Corps establishes health clinics in remote villages and hard-to-reach towns. We build health outposts, supply them with medicine and modern equipment, and train clinicians on up-to-date diagnostic and treatment methods.