I'm a Proud (sponsor) Mom!

A few weeks before Katrina, I was wrapped up in an article in the New York Times about the food emergency in Niger. Pictures and stories of babies dying of malnutrition, and of women, at the edge of starvation themselves, walking 13 miles barefoot to get to a camp where their children may be able to obtain life-sustaining sustenance gripped me. For some reason, that article got me restless. Similar to the uneasy restlessness I felt the day after Christmas when the tsunami swept across parts of Asia and Africa, I wanted to do something to be of assistance. Then I saw the “How you can help” link at the bottom of the page. I clicked on it and there the NYT provided a list of not-for-profit organizations that were providing help to the hungry in Niger. I chose World Vision because I remembered the board up in Daisy Bates’ mom’s kitchen where a virtual United Nations of the World Vision children that they sponsored were proudly displayed along with pictures and drawings that their sponsor children had sent to them. World Vision is a Christian organization that focuses on the physical needs of the communities they serve: food, water, clothing, education, health care and shelter.

Clicking on the World Vision site opens up a world of guilt-free online shopping. I don’t know about you, but I LUV online shopping. Sitting at my desk, I often engage in retail therapy to brighten up a dull day. With World Vision, I got all of the fun of shopping - bright and pictures, new products and the endless possibilities that newness brings - and none of the guilt. Besides sponsoring a child, you can browse through an entire world of shopping delight. Want to give a man a fish? Buy emergency food aid for places like Niger. Want to teach a man to fish? Buy some farm kits of seeds and tools or water kits for potable water. Besides simple sustenance, you can buy school supplies, immunizations, clothes, everything we have and never think about. And it’s a wonderful feeling! Most of the gifts you buy will be multiplied due to matching grants, so instead of buying two seed kits, you’ve actually provided fourteen! It’s the joy of compounding. Honestly, the thrill may leave you breathless.

Then there are the children. You can choose from which country you’d like to sponsor a child and whether you’d like a boy or a girl. Then you can sort of browse. All the children are compelling, so it’s hard to settle on one. I choose a four year-old Haitian girl who I’ll call “Lily” to protect her confidentiality. Lily is DARLING. Her mother put her hair up in one ponytail that sticks straight up and looks like a sideways unicorn horn. Darling, I tell you. When I got my picture of Lily to put up on my refrigerator door, I felt as though I had enlarged my family and I wanted to tell anyone who would listen about her, show them her picture and encourage them to get a sponsor child of their own.

Lily lives in a small village in Haiti that has been decimated by HIV. While Lily and her parents are healthy now, World Vision (and my sponsorship dollars) are working to secure health care and public health education in Lily’s village. Lily is what World Vision calls a Hope Child. Hope Children live in areas that have been struck by HIV. World Vision works in a community effort to stem the tide of the epidemic. Hope Children are a little more expensive, at $35 instead of $30 a month. However, I’ve seen someone die of AIDS and if my little $5 a month extra can save a life or ease a patient’s suffering, I’ll gladly pass up a frappuccino to help. Can I afford $35 a month? Considering that it is usual to spend $20 on dinner for one night, I say that I can. I support people spending their hard-earned money on things they enjoy, but I also strongly believe in setting some aside so that your blessing can be a blessing to others.

Lily enjoys playing with dolls and I have been told my World Vision that I can send her stickers (you can’t send anything that wouldn’t fit in a flat 6” x 9” envelope for fear of theft). I am going to find the most fabulous, shiniest, puffiest and fuzziest stickers to send to her. I may also be able to send her barrettes for her unicorn pigtail.

Is World Vision reputable? Well, they have been in operation since 1950 and have consistently received the highest rating of five stars for financial efficiency from Charity Navigator. But for me, it was enough of an endorsement that Daisy Bates’ parents have been sponsoring children through them for years.

Other questions: what difference can I make with one little sponsor child? I certainly won’t stop the spread of HIV or wipe hunger and instability off the face of the Haitian republic. Yet, I am reminded of the starfish story Daisy Bates told me:

A man and his son were walking down the beach one evening when the tide had washed a multitude of starfish to the shore. The little boy started bending down, picking up the starfish one by one and throwing them back in the ocean. His father asked him what he hoped to accomplish by throwing a few starfish back into the ocean. He couldn’t possibly save them all, so what difference did it make? The boy held up one starfish and replied to his father, “It makes a difference to this one,” and threw it in.

By sponsoring a child and buying a few seed kits or emergency food, I can’t hope to save an entire continent or an entire country, but I am a starfish collector. Who loves to shop online.