Bitcoin Forum

Last year, my youngest brother was a senior in high school, and he went with a group of 30 other high school students to build houses for homeless families in Juarez Mexico. Up until recently, Juarez was labeled as "The most violent city in the world". Not everyone is violent, but multiple drug-trafficking cartels (and their ensuing rivalries) have left their toll, and many people are homeless and/or without jobs.

My brother went through an organization called Casas Por Cristo (http://www.casasporcristo.org/), whose sole function is to coordinate traveling teams to come down, and build homes. They plan everything out, so then when a team gets there, all the supplies are bought for and waiting on site. It takes 15 people about a week to build these small houses, which are very basic to say the least. A few small rooms, simple plumbing and electricity run, roof, etc. But more importantly, within a matter of days a dirt pit becomes a home for a family. It's pretty cool.

Casos Por Cristo has been doing this for quite a while, and has facilitated the building of hundreds of these homes, using thousands of volunteers. Often these families are living in cramped quarters with relatives at best, or living on the streets at the worst. In the case of my brother's trip last year, the couple had a recent newborn baby, and the father was working out-of-town just to find a job. A house to call home was very much needed. Here are a couple of pics from my brother's trip.

Setting up the foundation:                          Building the walls:                                     
http://img43.imagevenue.com/loc246/th_608781382_DSC00511_122_246lo.JPG (http://img43.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=608781382_DSC00511_122_246lo.JPG) http://img178.imagevenue.com/loc375/th_608793429_DSC00556_122_375lo.JPG (http://img178.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=608793429_DSC00556_122_375lo.JPG)

The (almost) completed house:                   Footprints in the threshold to the house:
http://img208.imagevenue.com/loc145/th_608882512_DSC00671_122_145lo.JPG (http://img208.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=608882512_DSC00671_122_145lo.JPG) http://img149.imagevenue.com/loc203/th_609354304_DSC00660_122_203lo.JPG (http://img149.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=609354304_DSC00660_122_203lo.JPG)

Well this year, my brother is going back! Since I also work with High School students through our church, I'm also going to be going with him(!), along with a good number of kids from our church. As our group has grown, we're bringing 40 High School students, and they're going to be building 3 houses!

Our group of 40 will completely pay for the entire cost of all 3 houses, including supplies, food, airfare, hopefully something special for the families, and everything else, so it does cost money - about $1,000 per person. All of the students will be hosting fund-raisers before we leave in the middle of April, but if you thinking getting 40 High School students to fly down to Mexico during Spring Break and build houses for the poor rather than hitting up the beaches is pretty cool (I do!), then please consider donating! I've created a new address, so the donations can be publicly tracked: 1KUYDzEfLMsTojvUP1H9W4JGvUHi4cuHLw Seriously, anything you can offer would be greatly appreciated. 0.1BTC or 100BTC, I thank you.

We don't leave until the middle of April, but I'll be sure to update this thread as we get closer. When we do get back, I will be sure to post pictures of our work back in this thread. In the mean time, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Thanks
Crazyates

I'm always somewhat leery of donating to causes with a religious affiliation, but seriously have tons of respect for these kids for doing this. So, it's not much, but am going to send you 0.5 BTC to start this thread going. Hopefully more will do the same.

TX cb5f110e8e79394e38d0402dc4cb856e000600268face25e4c438166b69aff06

Best of luck with this.

I thank you very much!

It isn't much, but there are LOTS of homeless in the world!  Good luck in getting some donations for the cause. :)

Cheers,
Blak

Thanks! It can sometimes seem like TOO big of a problem. But like I said, they've already build hundreds and hundreds of homes already, and we are on the way to building hundreds more. :)

I just sent something for the good cause

I saw a donation come in, and then saw you posted here. Thanks!

actually,
the same problem happened in china.
but how to solve it not just donate BTC can be solve it.
this a global problem.

sent a little something
do good :D

Dont take this offensively in any way, but how do we know the Bitcoins are getting where you say they are?

None taken. I set up a new address just so anyone can see the coins as they've come in. As you can see according to Blockchain, I havn't converted the coins into USD yet. Once I do do that, I'm not sure how to publicly track their actual donation. Do you have any suggestion on this matter?

1 btc more on road  ;)

I wish you best of luck

Neotrix

Thanks!

To those who have donated in the past: the increase in price over the past month means that every coin donated to date goes even farther. As it stands right now, 20% of my trip has been funded through your donations. Amazing!  ;D :o :)

Do this in America, and i'll donate regularly.

Last time I checked Mexico was still in America..

I'd say more, it actually was in North America!

They've changed their minds, and they're now saying that North and South America are one continent, and Antarctica isn't a continent, but Europe and Asia are somehow still their own, separate continents.

We've got some sound logic here, folks.  :P

We do plenty of stuff in our local community, but the needs aren't quite the same.

This is the project's self description, taken from their website (http://www.casasporcristo.org/?view=mobile). Emphasis added by me. By donating you are supporting religious missionaries who who are doing this only for their fellows, not for any homeless person, like the thread title kind of suggests.

Thanks for taking the time to look into them. However, I think you bolded all the wrong parts. I fixed that for you. You somehow seemed to have extrapolated information about their candidate selection process from an excerpt of their site that does not have anything to do with that. I think you got confused. Yes, the organization uses local pastors who are familiar with the local community to identify candidates for the receipt of these houses, but the people we are building for do not even go to church.

Well, the dates for the trip have come! We'll be leaving early tomorrow morning (3am) to catch our 7:30am flight, and gathering all of our supplies. We start building on Monday, and finish by Thursday. 2nd half of Thursday and Friday will be spend working at an orphanage there, again doing some maintenance and upkeep on their facility, as they don't have the means. We come home Saturday. I won't be on the forums again until at least then.

I just wanted to say a giant Thank You to all those that donated! Bitcoin donations funded about 40% of my trip, and I think that's just plain awesome! I will post pictures of the young couple and their 8 month old boy and their new house wen I get back. Thanks again!

Aaron

Looking forward to seeing the photos. I think every young person in first world countries should have this type of opportunity. The perspective gained through such a trip is invaluable and affects you for life.

Aaron,

This might sound very crazy, but my family members do the same thing. My aunt is a minister and her son, my cousin just left for Oaxaca, Mexico on the 13th and returned the 20th. Maybe some sort of super coincidence or perhaps you know each other? Do by chance happen to be in Connecticut. You can PM me if you don't want to post details publicly.

I apologize for taking so long to finally post these since I've been back. Our trip was a resounding success. We build 3 homes in the week we were there, and each of the 3 families had very different stories for why they needed these houses. 2 of the parents were for young couples with young children, so they could live in a house that was more than just pallets or cardboard. Cardboard doesn't do so well in a sandstorm. The third house was for a couple who's parents were sick, but lived an hour away, so they were able to move in with their daughter who could care for them. We also visited an orphanage for troubled or neglected children, and spend 2 days working on fixing up some of their facilities, and playing with the kids. It was great.


Here are some pics of the building of the house. It's nothing amazing, but during the 3rd day, a sandstorm hit us, and it was cool that a house that wasnt there 3 days before was now protecting all 20 of us. It's the only house for miles with sheetrock, insulation, and sliding windows. Click for larger images.
http://s11.postimg.org/wru63219b/72148_10151645810644579_889040446_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/wru63219b/)http://s11.postimg.org/n8kh9ldr3/163502_10151645845799579_216590788_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/n8kh9ldr3/)http://s11.postimg.org/idqsbbffj/164639_10151612404298200_1431637371_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/idqsbbffj/)http://s11.postimg.org/b1pxjimlb/385830_10151645823324579_677586174_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/b1pxjimlb/)http://s11.postimg.org/ce317nun3/399778_10151645826674579_839179998_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/ce317nun3/)http://s11.postimg.org/wiwld4ogv/164650_10151556394307350_187266638_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/wiwld4ogv/)http://s11.postimg.org/r18l32in3/431811_10151645852354579_1584576395_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/r18l32in3/)http://s11.postimg.org/j1v1giorj/32302_10151645829734579_1245028015_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/j1v1giorj/)

This is the family my group was building for. There is the mother, her boyfriend, and their 8 month old son. She is part of a larger family, and you can see her siblings and parents as well.
http://s11.postimg.org/4dtbwx333/484464_10151645806219579_1162347134_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/4dtbwx333/)http://s11.postimg.org/dy8d6231b/71489_10151645817134579_1072873374_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/dy8d6231b/)http://s11.postimg.org/g6r514zj3/934798_10151645859149579_91893485_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/g6r514zj3/)

Mama, Papa, Baby, and Auntie all putting their handprints in the threshold.
http://s11.postimg.org/i8rmfdxi7/532687_10151645850554579_338879406_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/i8rmfdxi7/)http://s11.postimg.org/ov9outpsv/30564_10151645850864579_1789665563_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/ov9outpsv/)http://s11.postimg.org/riz556iu7/321664_10151645850039579_2100672214_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/riz556iu7/)http://s11.postimg.org/vj1p3ojxb/29348_10151645850499579_42106209_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/vj1p3ojxb/)http://s11.postimg.org/v50d42ztr/29338_10151645851104579_770370126_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/v50d42ztr/)

These are some of the kids from the orphanage we got to play with. They're either orphans, which means their parents abandoned them, or neglected, which means they were removed from their homes and put here, as no relatives were able to care for them. Either way, you would never know, as the 3 year olds all the way up to the 13 year olds were all very happy and smiling and willing to play with you all day long, something rare to find in an orphanage!
http://s11.postimg.org/vkktol0in/403301_10151645896739579_450546271_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/vkktol0in/)http://s11.postimg.org/5l79p4t7j/923225_10151612407663200_1184684947_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/5l79p4t7j/)http://s11.postimg.org/oaz95vly7/532209_10151612408318200_1492987675_n.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/oaz95vly7/)


Finally, THANK YOU to all of those who donated BTC to help fund this trip! It was an awesome, tangible way to help make the world a better place, and to help facilitate 20+ high school kids through that journey was humbling for me. If you have any questions, ask away!  :) :) :)