Dear CHOSA Supporters & Family Members!
Warm Festive Greetings! It’s that time of year again when we are all celebrating important family holidays and working hard to finish whatever the current year still requires of us, while preparing our hopes, dreams and plans for the coming New Year.
A few months ago we wrote to you as valued members of the CHOSA Community to update you through our Summer Newsletter on some of the amazing projects that your generosity over the years has enabled us to support. We asked you then to contribute what you could to help us continue this work, and you did – phenomenally! Thank-You!
It is because of your continued support and commitment to our shared vision of linking grassroots supporters in the US with grassroots community-driven projects in South Africa that we are able to report back to you once again on the gains these projects have made in 2010. Our Winter eNewsletter (excerpts of which will be posted here over the next few days) includes the latest news from the projects you have enabled us to support! We hope you will enjoy reading about the fruits of your commitment.
As the countdown to the New Year approaches, however, we are
still about $8,000 short of our goal for 2010, and we would like to ask you once again to support us with as little as $50 to help purchase a school uniform, or as much as $2000 to sponsor emergency shelter for a vulnerable family. CHOSA was founded on the principle that “a lot of littles make a big” – so every donation to CHOSA really does count!
The women and children that CHOSA works with on a daily basis are aware of the fact that our grants do not come from a mystery millionaire, but rather from a movement of “regular” people who believe in them and who give what they can. Over the past six years, because of YOU, CHOSA has sent almost $400,000 in uniquely unrestricted grants to ten different community-based organizations. This means that we have supported over 1,200 children!
CHOSA’s role in supporting these small community-based projects is very different from many children’s organizations because of the grassroots support you and others have provided. CHOSA is therefore able to support efficient grassroots projects that have a significant impact on the children’s lives.
Equally important is the impact these community-initiated projects have on the wider community. A community that finds ways to address one social problem together will soon find ways to address other community challenges together as well. As always, the CHOSA team works very hard to keep overhead costs extremely low – that’s why your dollars stretch much further with CHOSA’s work than with many larger organizations.
The result of these central principles is that we are able to provide the following services at costs that would be hard to beat through other methods:
- For every $2,000 we raise, we can pay monthly salaries for pre-school teachers for 150 children!
- Or, for the same $2,000, we can sponsor a new shelter for a vulnerable family!
- For $870 we can purchase enough diapers for 35 children for a month!
- For $720 we can feed the same 35 children infant formula for a month!
- Every $550 we raise can electrify an entire school for a month!
- Just $200 covers the school fees for a child who cannot afford to pay!
- And $68 buys a school uniform, which a child will wear with pride!
- Even $50 can provide diapers AND formula for 35 babies for a day!
Even so, 2010 has been a difficult fundraising year for small organizations across the country, and especially for those of us working to support poor communities outside the US. Your support has made so much possible in recent years, and we sincerely hope that you will be able to help us meet this final goal of the year, thus ensuring that our work can continue into 2011.
On behalf of the entire CHOSA Family, we thank you so much for your support, and wish you and your family a very Happy New Year!
Ann Eveleth
CHOSA Fundraising Coordinator
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