Backpacks of Hope
We have teased it for the last few weeks, but it is time to get the word out.  Help One Now’s 2013 Legacy Project — Backpacks of Hope — is upon us.

This year’s campaign is simple: we will raise $100,000 to empower and resource our six leaders in UGANDA, ZIMBABWE, ETHIOPIA, and HAITI.  Each leader has different needs for their particular community, so when this Project is completed, we will have funded everything from a community preschool and kindergarten to a computer lab to a year’s salary for several teachers, and more.  For the first time ever, we are incorporating all of our leaders into one campaign, and we couldn’t be more excited!

We will do this by selling 1,000 “backpacks” for $100 each.  Now, before you start to think that Help One Now has branched out into luggage, we haven’t.  We are selling neither physical backpacks nor the typical things they carry, like pencils or notebooks.  Rather, we are asking you to buy what those things represent to students: Education. Opportunity. HOPE.

The backpack is a SYMBOL, like the bricks from last year.  Every morning, children from Seattle to Austin to Port-au-Prince to Nairobi gather their school things, the tools they use to learn and grow, and stuff them into a backpack on their way to school.  Those tools are part of what gives these students their education, which in turn provides opportunity and ultimately leads to hope for their future.

The tools that Backpacks of Hope will provide will be unique to each of our six leaders.  For example, Gaétan hopes to open a computer lab and a library.  Jean-Alix Paul will be opening a preschool and kindergarten in Ferrier, Haiti.  John Chinyowa in Zimbabwe will be constructing a playground and a study room, as well as expanding his kitchen so he is able to serve even more children in his region.

HOW TO…

We are still putting some finishing touches on the official Help One Now Backpacks Of Hope site…and believe me, when it’s ready it will be incredible.  In the meantime, we’ll be concentrating our efforts on our Pure Charity page, which is ready to go right now.  Help One Now is excited to once again be utilizing Pure Charity’s online giving platform to help with our 2013 Legacy Project.  You can go to the Pure Charity Backpacks of Hope campaign site, where you can give to our campaign, or START YOUR OWN campaign.  Rally your tribe together to fund a backpack — or set an even larger goal to fund 5, 10, 50, even 100 backpacks!

TWO OPTIONS…

button-donate
button-fundraise

Pure Charity also allows you to fund the project using the most common activity of the holiday season — shopping! Many companies — Target, Apple, J. Crew, Groupon, etc — earmark a certain percentage of sales for charitable donations; and now you can choose where that percentage goes.  To sign up, visit their site here and download the browser plugin.  Once that is installed, any website that partners with Pure Charity will display a Pure Charity icon in the top left corner.  Then, shop away!  Purchases will automatically be added to your Pure Charity giving account, which you can then give directly to Backpacks of Hope!

WE NEED YOUR HELP to make this project a success.  Help One Now is a grassroots tribe, and we’re nothing without each one of you!  Help us spread the word. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, church, small group, and social media channels what we’re doing and how they can help.   And we’ll be sure to let you know when our main site is up and running.

However you help, please know this:  your support will change the lives of students in Haiti, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia!  Thank you in advance for investing in HOPE.