2013 Board of Colonel V. Doner, Ph.D, Chairman Rev. Mario Aviles, Secretary/Treasurer Dr. Monte Wilson, Director Directors Betel Lopez-Guiterrez, Vice-President Rev. Wayne McNamara, Director Rev. Warren Hays, Director Members and Directors serve a two-year term. The governing board of CHRF is scheduled to meet three times annually. Executive Staff Colonel V. Doner, President Kathleen W. McCall, Vice-President Brant V. Doner, Assistant Vice-President Terry Grave, Web Master Derek Hammond, Emergency Relief Director David Maina, Africa Water Development Director Betel Lopez-Guiterrez, Director of Education Gabi Schmitz, Project Coordinator Miriam Norman, Donor Communications Olivia Hernandez, Donor Communications Ashley Steffensen, Donor Communications Proud Participant Of ... Christian Service Charities Combined Federal Campaign #11730 Neighbor to Nation Contact Information Children’s Hunger Relief Fund [email protected] Visit our website: www.CHRF.org Phone: 707-528-8000 Toll Free: 888-781-1585 Fax: 707-525-1310 Letter from the Chairman Helping People Transform Their Lives Is Our Business What is Children’s Hunger Relief Fund all about? What is our mission? We are part of a non-denominational association of churches whose primary purpose is saving children’s lives and sharing God’s love. We do this by helping people transform their lives and their communities so they can live productively and peacefully. What makes us unique amongst a myriad of other fine relief and development organizations? It’s the four agreements we make with you, our donor: We agree to keep our operating overhead as low as possible; it has been below 3½ percent for the past 16 years. We agree to not duplicate relief efforts, but rather to go “where angels fear to tread.” This means partnering with local groups “on the ground” to serve those overlooked by other agencies and “digging in” – even in active war zones – when other agencies have pulled out due to life-threatening conditions. We agree to help empower individuals and communities to move from the self-perpetuating cycle of need and dependency to a sustainable model of self-sufficiency. We do this on three levels: 1) Providing education and vocational training. 2) Providing small family business training and capital. 3) Providing communities with infrastructure (such as clean water systems) and self-sustaining agricultural projects. The result: sustainable social and economic transformation. We agree to multiply donations to achieve greater value by procuring and shipping tons of donated relief aid (food, medicines, medical supplies, etc.) for just the cost of procurement and distribution. Lastly, we are committed to a true partnership with you. As we act as the physical extension of your love and compassion to those in need, you truly participate in the miracle of transformation…one child…one family…one community at a time. We offer you our deepest gratitude for making all of this possible this past year! Your support is deeply appreciated and carefully stewarded. Colonel V. Doner, Ph.D President Vision Statement Children’s Hunger Relief Fund is part of a non-denominational association of churches focused on humanitarian work and dedicated to helping disadvantaged children and families transform their lives and their communities through the power of practical compassion, honor and reciprocity (giving back). We save children’s lives today through feeding programs, health care and abandoned children’s homes; and we equip children and families for future success through education, training, and sustainable self-development through small business and agriculture projects. Our Vision How Your Compassion Reaches Around Philippines Our relief teams once again visited our amazing projects that provide children living in garbage dumps and under bridges with nutritious meals! Innocent children who were trafficked and sexually abused have found a home and hope for the future. the World Kenya Contaminated water is one of the leading causes of child deaths. We have built community water systems for over 30 years resulting in thousands of children enjoying clean, disease-free water. More than 6,200,000 meals served by CHRF & our partners Ethiopia/Somalia CHRF has continued our work in the Horn of Africa by providing hundreds of thousands of life-saving meals to children and their families. Because of your help we continue our work making a difference in this forgotten part of the world! South Sudan As fighting and war displaced hundreds of thousands of people and turned tens of thousands of innocent children into lost orphans, our team has risked their lives in dangerous missions in order to deliver life-saving food and supplies. More Than $62,289,000 of Aid Delivered to Families in 23 Countries: Afghanistan Belize Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Costa Rica Ethiopia Ghana Haiti Honduras Kenya Mexico Moldova Nicaragua Philippines Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa South Sudan Syria Uganda USA Zambia Life Transforming Services Provided: 6,200,000 million meals served Orphan Care Community Water Projects Education Feeding Centers Medical Supplies & Clinics Child Immunization HIV/AIDS Prevention Seminars Hygiene Seminars Micro-Enterprise Loans Vocational Training Sustainable Job Creation Leadership Development Emergency Assistance to War and Disaster Victims Highlights 6,200,000 Meals* Served in 2013 by CHRF & our partners! If you can’t feed a hundred children, then feed just one. - Mother Teresa Malnutrition from sustained hunger is the #1 killer of children particularly small children. Of the almost 7 million children who die every year before they reach their fifth birthday, nearly half (45%) die as a result of poor nutrition. That’s over 8400 little boys and girls every day, simply because they didn’t get enough food to eat. Malnutrition is the “invisible emergency” because its deadly effects are not always obvious until the damage is already done. In addition to making small children more vulnerable to disease, malnutrition also cripples their growth and development and dulls their intellect. If they manage to survive their fifth birthday, they are likely to develop learning disabilities that will affect them for the rest of their lives. In light of the terrible consequences of child hunger, it is staggering to consider that one out of six children in developing countries is malnourished. The numbers are even grimmer in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. If the hope of these children for a productive future is to be preserved, they must have nutritious food to eat today - and tomorrow. As evident by our name, bringing relief to hungry children is one of our core purposes. To this end, CHRF and our partners provided over 6.2 million life-saving meals to hungry children around the world including in Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Uganda, Philippines and Afghanistan. In 2013, we expanded our emergency food distributions in Ethiopia and Somalia and brought relief to families displaced by the war in Syria. In addition to direct feeding programs, CHRF also continued to fund projects aimed at addressing the root causes of child hunger at the family and community levels. This included investing in sustainable agriculture projects and micro-enterprise programs. (For more information on these programs, please see “Breaking the Cycle of Poverty.”) *To determine meal numbers we use an average based on our project partners reports and/or on the amount of support given. Meal numbers are affected by prices and availability of staple foods in local markets. Consequently, they can vary greatly from project to project and year to year, depending on the location of the program as well as the political, environmental and cultural context. Thanks to you, CHRF and our partners served more than 6.2 million meals to hungry children in 2013. Food For Hungry Children Community Water Systems “If 90 school buses filled with kindergartners were to crash every day, with no survivors, the world would take notice. But this is precisely what happens every single day because of poor water, sanitation and hygiene” (Sanjay Wijesekera, global head of UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene program). Globally, an estimated 2000 children under the age of five die every day from diarrheal diseases and of these some 1800 deaths are linked to water, sanitation and hygiene, according to Unicef. Most of these children live in subSaharan Africa, where as many as four out of five rural households don’t have access to safe water and are forced to rely instead on water sources where animals also drink and eliminate. Filthy ditch water is all these children have to drink. The only water source is often a stagnant pond or a muddy, barely seeping water hole, where it can take an hour or more of patient waiting to fill a bucket with dirty water that most of us wouldn’t give our pets. Even where rain is plentiful, natural water supplies are contaminated with disease-carrying parasites, which kill significant numbers of children. Most will die of the wasting effects of simple diarrhea, and most will be little girls and boys under the age of five. Providing safe drinking water is one of the most powerful and costeffective things that we can do to save a child’s life - in fact, to save a whole village of children and their families for years to come! A small family tank to collect and store clean water costs as little as $500 and can serve up to eight people. A well or large tank for an For the first time in their lives, these children in entire village costs between $3500 Uganda and over 200 of their school friends have and $5000 on average. These lifereliable access to clean drinking water! saving projects have an average useful life of 20 to 25 years! That works out to a cost of pennies a day to provide clean, life-saving water to desperate families. Children scramble for their first drink of clean, disease-free water in Uganda. Providing access to safe drinking water is one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways to save a child’s life - in fact, to save a whole village of children and their families for years to come. In 2013, CHRF funded community water systems that serve 31,131 people. Water For Thirsty Children AIDS/HIV Support “We are very grateful for the work of Children’s Hunger Relief Fund in its efforts to provide abandoned and orphaned children, particularly AIDS orphans, with nutritional assistance, clean water, educational materials and medical services.” - Committee for African Affairs of the United Nations Association A staggering 15.1 million children have been orphaned by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa alone. CHRF donors funded the first of our “Samaritan Homes” in 2000 to create a loving environment for these children, many of them infected since birth with the virus. Today, these homes continue to provide nutrition, medical attention, education and the love every child deserves. Through the HIV/AIDS program in Kenya, our support has helped bridge the gap between HIV patients and the community. People are educated about awareness, understanding and prevention of HIV/AIDS. The patients receive medical care, counseling, and group support. The face of AIDS Along with medical and spiritual aid, a feeding program is available for the home care patients in need, providing them with 8 kg of maize and 8 kg of beans. This food coupled with locally grown vegetables and fruit is sufficient to last an entire month. In 2013, CHRF helped care for children affected by AIDS through homes for orphaned children in Kenya and Uganda, a crisis nursery for abandoned and malnourished babies in Zambia, as well as feeding centers and HIV/AIDS prevention seminars in Kenya. Expanding The Value Thanks to the project, women receive maize and beans along with medical and spiritual aid. of Your Donations Medicines And Life-Saving Miracles In The Philippines In 2013, our Gifts-In-Kind inspection team, led by twenty year veteran board member Dr. Monte Wilson and his team, traveled to the Philippines to visit the hospitals and clinics that CHRF provides with millions of dollars worth of medicines and medical supplies every year. While on their trip, they also visited our partners and projects that have been working relentlessly to help end the suffering of hundreds of thousands of children who live in severe poverty. Dr. Wilson shared about the team’s trip: “It’s really amazing to see what a blessing these medicines are to so many good people. As I walked through the hospital inspecting the facilities, nurse after nurse ran up to hug and thank me for our donations. I assured them that it was the generous donors of CHRF that made these valuable donations possible. Many of these hospitals in the Philippines are Roman Catholic and run by nuns; it’s humbling to be thanked by selfless women who have dedicated their entire lives to helping others. Many of these nurses and sisters urged us to come back soon and begged us to continue sending the medical sustenance that we have been providing for years. If our CHRF donors could see the incredible and life-saving work that they are helping make possible each and every single day, not only here in the Philippines but around the world, I know they would be deeply encouraged!” But our work isn’t finished; CHRF is continuing to work to provide medicine and food for thousands of children in the Philippines, many of whom scavenge through garbage dumps all day long in order to earn the ten cents it costs to buy a meal. Together we are providing thousands of meals for these beautiful children. Multiplying Your Dollars Micro-Enterprises Small family businesses ... providing dignity, not a handout. In a world where one billion people live on a dollar or less a day, CHRF was an early pioneer in funding small business loans (“micro-enterprise loans”) to help families achieve financial self-sufficiency through their own entrepreneurial efforts. As little as $250 can change a family’s life forever! With your help, we have transformed thousands of lives. Parents have gained the dignity of being able to feed and educate their children who are now growing up in positive, productive environments with new hope for a better future. Jobs are created for other members of the community, multiplying the benefit of the program throughout local economies. We call this “breaking the cycle of poverty.” Displaying clothes for sale Helping Families Become Self-Sufficient Our Goal: Launch thousands of small family businesses. Here’s how it works: The first step is to give a small loan of $250 or less to an industrious family. When that loan is repaid, the funds are loaned to another family. By starting new businesses each year, and by reinvesting the repaid loans, thousands of newly selfsufficient families can break the cycle of poverty. Making baskets to sell One of the simplest micro-credit programs that CHRF supports is our goat project in Kenya, Africa. After extensive training in animal husbandry and basic business skills, qualified families are provided with a female goat. The goat produces milk for the family and for sale – and it breeds! The first female ‘kid’ is repaid to the project (like a loan) so the young goat can be given to yet another family once it matures. Then the cycle repeats itself. Eventually each family can have its own flock of goats that provides them with meat, milk and self-sufficiency. With your help, hundreds of families in Africa and Central America have been able to feed their own children and become economically self-sufficient. Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Education Education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty - and changing a child’s life forever. We are committed to providing children with education to help open new doors of hope for each child’s future. In 2013, our donors helped provide thousands of children with access to the transforming power of education at schools in Mexico, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Haiti, Kenya and Uganda. We are committed to not only changing the current conditions for children and families around the world but also to improving their future. By helping children go to school and receive a priceless education we are helping to enable thousands of children around the world to BREAK the cycle of poverty. When most children grow up around poverty and never receive an education, they will have little to no chance to ever bring themselves or their future families out of poverty. But, with the help of CHRF, we have broken this cycle for thousands of children over the past four decades. “CHRF has helped thousands of orphans not only get off the dangerous streets of Juarez for more than 20 years, but has also given them the opportunity to receive an education, an education that will in turn change their lives for the better. We are so grateful to CHRF for their years of support. Without their integral help, our children would not have the happy and healthy lives that they have today.” Betel Lopez, Director, Juarez Orphanage “No investment has such a lasting effect as the education of children.” ~ United Nations Children’s Fund Vocational Training “Our commitment is to turn poverty into productivity.” ~ Mike Bresnan, CHRF Member We are committed to supporting permanent transformation in the lives of those we serve. To this end, we continue to invest in life skills development and vocational training. This includes training programs in different areas such as small business management, computers, textiles, machine tool operation and repair, sewing, weaving, jewelry-making businesses, carpentry and mechanic shops. Children learn sewing so that they may have skills to provide for their future. These programs create jobs and provide opportunities for life skills, as well as vocational and management training. Our vocational training programs continue to produce dramatic results in the lives of the participants and their communities. Math and language courses are taught to enhance the children’s chances at becoming self-sufficient. Your donations helped send 3,145 children to school in 2013 and helped train orphaned teens in marketable trades, allowing them to become self-sufficient, productive adults. Education and Training Homes for Orphaned and Abandoned Children Thanks to our committed donors, CHRF helps to rescue hundreds of orphaned and abandoned children every year providing them with new lives of safety and hope. A Few Examples: Uganda: The Power of One What happens when one man decides to change his world? A miracle! Children who are born into crushing poverty, living in the streets and eating scraps from the garbage end up with a life full of hope and promise! They go from being homeless with no perspective for the future to a loving home with a family, a solid education and skills that change their life paths forever. This man is Caleb, our project director in Kampala, who was rescued as a child from a life on the streets by a kind stranger. Now he is rescuing street children himself. He gives them not only a place to stay, but a family, an education, medical care, vocational skills and a sense of pride, belonging and safety. In short, Caleb gives them their childhood back. Caleb has his work cut out for him for he is not only determined to help many more children escape the filth, danger and despair of street life, but solve the street children problem in Kampala for good! During a recent visit, our team was able to witness how Caleb has grown his program from caring for a small number of street children in two rented homes to impacting the lives of over 100 orphans and street children at any given time in his own children’s home, two rented transition homes, and soon a newly constructed home for single mothers who are escaping life in the slum. Caleb’s holistic model of giving hopeless mothers and destitute children a home, love, an education, skills, values, a sense of self-worth and responsibility breaks the cycle of dependency and despair and as a result, changes lives forever. His dedication and love for street children is perhaps most evident in the many young adults - former street children from his homes - who stay with him as mentors, caregivers or farm workers to help him realize his vision of a country where every child has a loving home. A vision well worth supporting! Kenya: Samaritan Children’s Centers More than 120 boys and girls call the Samaritan Children’s Centers in Nakuru home. These children come from different parts of the country and various desperately poor backgrounds. But what they all have in common is the fact that the Samaritan Center is the only place they have ever known where they can be children – no younger siblings to raise, no walking for hours through the scorching sun to fetch water for the family, no scavenging for food, no working all day or wondering if they will ever go to school. The children at our homes are orphaned, abandoned or displaced; before coming to the Samaritan Centers, they knew nothing but death, disease, hunger and deprivations. At the Centers life is simple – the children sleep in bunk beds in dorms, they have few personal possessions, there is no indoor plumbing, meals are prepared on a wood stove, the day is filled with school, homework and chores. And yet, there is an overwhelming sense of belonging, purpose, joy and love when you visit. The kids are open, friendly and curious. They love to share and play with visitors; they are proud to show their home and talk about their dreams for the future. There is no doubt – if you had to grow up in crushing poverty and lose your family, you couldn’t end up in a better place than the Samaritan Centers! Philippines: SAINTS OF COMPASSION In a small city in the Philippines, CHRF works with a league of extraordinary nuns lead by Mother Superior Joan Claire. Mother Joan’s heart is for the poor and disadvantaged and that is why for years she has sought out orphans and children who have turned to the filthy trash of the city dump to scavenge for food. CHRF Team Member visits Mother Joan who has dedicated her life to helping vulnerable children. Mother Joan and her dedicated order of sisters have not only set up feeding programs at these dumps, but also oversee an orphanage for abused and abandoned children. Your donations to CHRF helped rescue hundreds of abandoned children off the streets in 2013. We call that saving the world – one child at a time. Hope For Abandoned Children War & Emergency Relief Still Saving Lives in Haiti Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, hasn’t yet recovered from the biggest natural disaster of the century, the giant earthquake that destroyed the capital city, killing over 200,000 people, and leaving over 1,000,000 souls jobless and homeless. Our CHRF team and partners have been working hard in Haiti to help restore the lives of the countless children who have been affected and orphaned by this disaster. In 2013 we worked with our medical partners to help fight the growing cholera epidemic that has taken the lives of thousands of children. Thanks to our compassionate donors, we have helped ease the suffering for these children and their families who have already been through so much in recent years by treating over 6,200 cholera victims! And we plan to help even more! We’ve also purchased brick-making machines in the past that continue to help re-build more homes in Haiti! “We cannot put into words the gratitude that we have towards your willingness to stand with us and provide the opportunity of life to so many precious people. Please know that your gift will continue to give hope and healing for thousands in rural Haiti.” – CHRF Partners in Haiti to YOU, our donors. War & Emergency Relief Syria After a horrific civil war broke out in Syria, the CHRF Emergency Relief Team stepped in to find and help the children and families who had so quickly lost everything. The facts cannot be ignored: • Over 100,000 people died in the war. • Two million people were displaced. More than one million children are refugees. This family of nine lives under this shelter made out of blankets. Together we are helping them! • More than one million refugees are children. In response to the refugee crisis, CHRF spoke with the U.N. Human Rights Council to find villages of refugees that NO OTHER relief agency had helped! Many families are scared of staying in the larger refugee camps where violence and crime are terribly high. Because of this problem many families choose to try and survive outside of the camps where there was no help until CHRF arrived and provided emergency relief packages. Thank you for your help to little boys like this precious one who is happily sitting on food and supplies for his family! You have provided them with HOPE! The first victims in any war are the women and children. Often displaced from their homes, their possessions and their livelihood, they are left stranded without food, water, shelter or medical care. The relief provided by organizations such as Children’s Hunger Relief Fund is often their only hope for survival. Help For War & Disaster Victims War & Emergency Relief South Sudan: 900,000 People Displaced Imagine a large town with a population of 150,000 with busy street markets, churches, schools and despite their poverty, happy people. But overnight evil brews and an endless tribal war consumes the innocent town. The very next day the air is horribly thick with the smell of death and the smoke from burning homes and buildings. Thousands have been tragically killed – men, women and children! All we can do is help the survivors. And that’s exactly what the CHRF team did by being the FIRST relief team to help these desperate families. Our international team leader reported to us about their daring mission: “Once we were in the town we found as many survivors as we could to give them food and aid. I still cannot believe their horrendous stories of suffering and death. This town used to have over 150,000 people, now it is a ghost town, most of it burnt to the ground. We were able to find, help and feed over 2,000 people! Despite the danger and constant fighting our team was able to provide 48,000 meals to people who hadn’t received ANY other help! Without YOUR help, none of these miracles would have been possible! Thank you for working with CHRF to help these suffering children and people! Ethiopia OVER 500,000 meals and continuing to provide HOPE to the hopeless! In the summer of 2013, CHRF continued our mission and promise of going where angels fear to tread by delivering life saving meals to children and even entire villages in Ethiopia, reaching families and children that no other relief agencies had been able to find. Our international crisis relief team has been doing this work for over 20 years, thanks to your generous help. On one trip alone in the drought-affected country, we delivered 90 tons of food, providing sustenance and hope for five starving villages. That’s over half a million meals, enough food for months! We also delivered 34 tons of seeds to 152 farmers. These farmers will reap 228 tons of wheat this year. They will give a percentage of their harvest to “the less fortunate,” keeping enough to support and feed their families for the year, and have enough seeds to plant again next year. Talking with these farmers, each of them noted what, for them, was the most exciting thing: they will be able to send their children to school. Hope for the next generation! Donors like YOU make life-saving trips like this one by CHRF possible! Thank you for not ignoring the need around the world; thank you for making a difference in the lives of others, even if you’ve never met them; thank you for bringing hope to the hopeless. Help For War & Disaster Victims CHRF Association of Churches making a difference: Mercy work in the south of Mexico In coordination with our pastors in Mexico our CHRF Association of Churches delivered vital aid to very poor regions during the harsh winter. Warm blankets were delivered to children’s homes, women’s shelters and homes for the elderly. Many of these centers were in great need of blankets to help the poor survive the winter. Betel Lopez and a few of our pastors from the CHRF association of Churches Our Association of Churches worked with different organizations to provide emergency aid to suffering families. The 13 congregations in the area that serve as members to our association were also blessed with blankets for their families. In order to continue our commitment to children we provided assistance to an orphanage with approximately 40 children. They care for children who have been abandoned and abused. They provide teens with psychological support, spiritual care and practical skills for a better opportunity in life. We also helped our partners that provide legal, medical, psychological, spiritual and financial aid to women and children. In the city of Torreon there has been an explosion of violence due to the drug cartel wars. Our partners have helped many families recover from tragedies like deaths due to the drug war. Through our Association of Churches in Latin America we continue to look for partners and churches we can assist to teach God’s love and His compassion and to help the poor and needy. If your church would like to apply for membership in our Association of Churches, please contact Betel Lopez, Director of Religious Education, at lopez.betel@gmail. com. Fiscal Year January - December 2013 96.6% Allocated To Life-Saving Programs 3.4% To Administration Costs Expenses Programs $ 62,289,990 Fundraising and Promotion 1,124,786 Management and General 1,082,612 Total Expenses $64,497,388 Children’s Hunger Relief Fund is an independent, nonprofit, charitable organization. Contributions to CHRF are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. CHRF is also registered with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as a private voluntary organization. CHRF is legally constituted as a non-denominational association of churches. 8 Ways You Can Change 1 a Child’s Life Invest in a Child’s Future. Even the smallest gift can change a child’s life forever. See our contact information on the back of this report. Consider a monthly giving program. Visit our website at www.chrf.org to learn more about our Online Giving System. This tool allows users to create a personal donor log-on. This allows the donors to track gift history, manage reoccurring gifts, change donor information and passwords, and much more. 2 Adopt a Project. Invest in something that moves your heart - like a feeding program to help hungry children, or child immunization, or clean water projects. Learn more by visiting our website at www.chrf.org. 3 Make a Memorial or Special Occasion Gift in the Name of a Loved One. Celebrate the life of someone you love by giving a life-changing gift in his or her name to a child or family in need. A card or note will be sent to acknowledge your special gift. 4 Make Your Next Party an Event. With your next birthday party, you could help rescue some AIDS orphans off the street...or fund a child immunization drive for a village...or help build a water well for a school or village. A special online giving link can be provided for your event. Contact us to learn more about this Online Event Tool. 5 Planned Giving - Legacy of Miracles. Including us in your will or trust can be a wonderful way to create a perpetual, living legacy that will continue to make a life-saving difference in the lives of needy children. Contact Brant Doner at [email protected] or 888-781-1585. 6 Get Others Involved. Encourage a group you’re part of - like a class, business, club or other association - to sponsor a project. Together, you could raise money for something you care about - including Sudan refugees, hungry children and water well projects for African schools. A special online giving link can be provided for your event. Contact us to learn more about this Online Event Tool. 7 8 Combined Federal Campaign. Children’s Hunger Relief Fund proudly participates in the CFC. Please remember CHRF when you fill out your pledge card and choose charity #11730. Pray. Find a favorite project on our website and pray for its success. Thank you for your support. We couldn’t do it without you! Ways You Can Help / Financial Information