Hi all,
Posting my proposal here for some feedback before opening it up for voting. Please provide feedback here after reading below:
http://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=150.0I'm the Executive Director of one of BBP's recipient charities, BLOOM (Be Love Orphan Outreach Missions.) As some of you may know, one of our main programs is orphan hosting. It's an amazing program where we bring kids from Poland (and hopefully Burundi this summer) to the U.S. for a "reverse mission trip" where American families host the orphans in their homes, and the kids learn English, experience the love of Christ through a Christian family that exemplifies Him, and they get dental and eye exams, etc.
The kids significantly increase their self esteem through this program, thereby decreasing their chances of going into prostitution, becoming criminals, or committing suicide (all very common among orphans who age out of the system in Eastern Europe). 15% of orphans will commit suicide before their 18th birthday, 60% of orphan girls will become prostitutes and 50% of orphan boys will become criminals if no one intervenes in their lives to show them that they can have a future. Hosting mentorship, plus sharing the love of Jesus gives these kids the hope they need for a better future. Also, orphan hosting significantly increases a child's chances of getting adopted (by about 50-70% depending on the country's adoption rules).
I would like to ask if Bible Pay would sponsor a few "hosting scholarships" for Polish orphans to help offset their airfare to come here on the hosting program. My research shows that kids who have scholarships are 75% more likely to be hosted.
Five one-time scholarships at between $500-1250 each would help us place 7-9 more kids this summer, including hard-to-place sibling groups! If that is too much to ask, we can certainly reduce this number. To give you perspective, I have 45 Polish kids to place right now, but no scholarships from donors yet, so you'd be really making an impact. I have only placed 5 so far with families, so there will be many heartbroken kids if we cannot boost this number thanks to scholarships.
The benefits of sponsoring a scholarship are that I will directly send updates on how the child is doing in their host family while here in the U.S., including pictures, and you only have to fund it ONCE instead of worrying about ongoing monthly sponsorship funding. And it's exciting to know you literally brought a child out of their orphanage, possibly for the first time in their lives, to get to know the love of Jesus and love of a family, also for the first time ever. Of course, I would give another shout out to BBP as the sponsor on Facebook and in our next newsletter.
The only downside is there would be no letter writing involved, since we don't tell the kids that someone sponsored them (other than their host family).
Here is a breakdown of the hosting costs per child and how significant BBP's impact would be:
Total hosting cost: $2995
International Airfare: $1000-1200 (BBP contribution 50%)
Domestic US Airfare: $250-500
Food for child in airport/during in-country transport: $20
Medical Insurance: $100
Chaperone travel fees (approx 1 chap for 10-15 kids): $200
Social worker home visit: $150
Child's visa: $160
Child's passport: $100
In-country travel for child to get to airport from orphanage and to embassy (2 trips): $60-80
BLOOM in-country coordinator fee: $100
In-country paperwork chase for child's travel docs/coordinator transport: $50-60
Program shirt/lanyard/ID card: $20
Interview trip/BLOOM US coordination fees: $330
Airline Escorts: $50
Emergency budget: $40-120 (depending on above costs being higher or lower than expected)
In sum, I'd like to ask if BBP would sponsor the following (non-recurring):
Three $500 scholarships for individual kids=$1500/750,000BBP
Two $1250 scholarships for sibling groups of 2 or 3=$2500/1,250,000BBP
Total: $4000/2,000,000 BBP
If this is too much for the budget right now, I will revise and reduce as needed, but, this would give between 7 and 9 kids a chance at knowing Jesus this summer as is.
Thank you for the consideration and let me know if you have any questions!
April Wareham
BLOOM Executive Director
www.bloomworldwide.org
