A special thank you to the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association at American University Washington College of Law for hosting a bubble tea fundraiser to benefit Children’s Hope Fund.  The fundraiser was a great success – educating the community about CHF’s mission and raising enough funds to provide assistance to four students.  Thank you WCL and APALSA for your generosity and support!

Children’s Hope Fund is dedicated to working with others to promote the education and well-being of impoverished children by providing school supplies, nutritious meals, clothing, and more. By doing this, we can break the cycle of poverty that plagues the poorest children in the Philippines.

CHF is currently seeking new members for its Board of Directors. As an organization run completely by volunteers, we seek dedicated individuals who have experience in fundraising, event planning, education, nonprofit management, finance/accounting, PR, and other areas relevant to the development of the organization.

For more information about this opportunity, visit http://www.idealist.org/view/volop/33mSn5JS7tmJd/ or contact info@childrenshopefund.org.

This is our 2011 Year in Review video, showing how your support has helped the children of Bacoor. Thank you all!!

The video was put together by Brad Rossini. Thanks, Brad!

Thanks to everyone who attended our Year in Review event last week. It was great to see you all and get a chance to show you how your support has helped the children of Bacoor. Special thanks to Bob Avery and the Million Dollar Round Table Foundation for their generous grant in the amount of $5000. We’re excited to see what the next year brings! Thanks again for all your help and support!  Read the official press release below:

August 5, 2011— Robert L. Avery, II, CLU, ChFC, of Denver, Colorado, secured a $5,000 grant from the MDRT Foundation on behalf of Children’s Hope Fund. Avery, a 26-year MDRT member, is an active supporter of Children’s Hope Fund and nominated and endorsed the grant application. Children’s Hope Fund (http://www.childrenshopefund.org/) is a nonprofit organization that provides support so that impoverished Filipino children can attend school, better their lives and break the cycle of poverty. The MDRT Foundation grant will support the organization’s programs.

This year, the MDRT Foundation will award more than $850,000 USD in grants to more than 100 charities. Representing the MDRT Foundation, Avery presented this grant to Children’s Hope Fund on July 26, 2011 at the organization’s “Year in Review” event, held at Forest Room 5 in Denver, CO. At the event, Children’s Hope Fund’s Board of Directors reported the organization’s activities and achievements for the past year, including a Board member’s visit to Bacoor, Philippines in June 2011 to distribute school supplies. Avery presented the check for $5,000 to Rhezy Davis, Founder and President of Children’s Hope Fund. In his presentation, Mr. Avery said, “It is not easy to change the world, but [through organizations such as Children’s Hope Fund] we are able to change someone’s world.”

The MDRT Foundation was created in 1959 to provide MDRT members with a means to give back to their communities. Since its inception, the Foundation has donated more than $26 million in 80 countries around the world and in all 50 U.S. states. The majority of these funds were raised by MDRT members from MDRT members. The MDRT Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Million Dollar Round Table, The Premier Association of Financial Professionals®. MDRT is an international, independent association of more than 34,000 of the world’s best life insurance and financial services professionals from more than 80 nations and territories. MDRT members demonstrate exceptional product knowledge, strict ethical conduct and outstanding client service. MDRT membership is recognized internationally as the standard of sales excellence in the life insurance and financial services business.

Children’s Hope Fund will be holding a Year in Review event on Tuesday, 7/26 from 7-9pm at Forest Room 5 in Denver, CO (map).  We invite everyone to join us for a presentation of our efforts and accomplishments over the last year and see how your support has helped the children of Bacoor. We’re also excited to announce that representatives from the Million Dollar Round Table Foundation will be joining us to present Children’s Hope Fund with a generous grant to help in our continuing efforts. We hope to see you there, and please invite your friends!

In November 2010, I went on a two-week backpacking trip to the Philippines with my sister and friend. From Manila, with our 40-pound backpacks, our destination was 9.5 miles away: Bacoor Cavite. A typical 10-minute drive in the States was a three-hour adventure. We first took a tricycle to the train station, then rode the train to a jeepney stop.

Jeepneys. I’ve never seen anything like it – picture a carnival on wheels. Bright colors, wild graffiti and decorative adornments embellished a school-bus-shaped vehicle. We missed our stop, going too far south and had to tread down a dirt road to get to another jeepney stop headed back the way we came. We then took another tricycle to Bacoor Elementary School. We made it!

On our journey, many asked us why we, tourists, were going to visit this town. What is there to do or see in this poor area? Well, today we were going to volunteer with Children’s Hope Fund (CHF), a Denver-based nonprofit organization that provides educational opportunities and resources to impoverished children.

We were greeted by Rosalie Concepcion, a school teacher and volunteer for CHF. She warmly welcomed us into her home where over a dozen volunteers were cooking. This day was an exciting day for 300 children. They were going to receive a hot meal – for free!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA-Y65ywCIk

The Children’s Hope Fund was hosting its monthly meal program that provided one piece of fried chicken, white rice and a juice box to each child. When we arrived at the site in the poor village of Tramo, the children were waiting patiently and orderly in the hot sun. They were lined in rows, each holding “the golden ticket.” Tickets for the free meal were distributed to children in school, as a way of encouraging them to attend.

The volunteers gave us a tour of the area. Many of the homes did not have doors – we could look right into them. They appeared to be formed by upright pieces of wood with a board slapped on top to function as the roof.

Some of the children did not have shoes, running around on the path of dirt and rocks. They were playing with bottle caps. Everyone greeted us with a smile. Many were missing teeth.

When the food arrived, my sister and friend assisted in passing out the meal boxes to the children. I wandered the area taking photos and making conversation with the parents – nearly all were women. Most said they were single mothers, working as the breadwinners for their family. They expressed their gratitude for Children’s Hope Fund. This meal was important to them. Some children had waited in line for more than two hours. Many mothers asked if there would be leftover lunchboxes available for them. I watched the joy on the children’s faces as they enjoyed such a simple meal.

It was an eye-opening experience. With the kind hearts of its volunteers, the Children’s Hope Fund was making a substantial impact on the lives of these children. Rosalie shared a major problem is that after concepts are taught in school, they are not reinforced at home because most parents are not educated enough to help. Many parents shared the same sentiments, but with guilt that they could not provide more for their children.

As my eyes began to well up, I realized that not only do I need to better appreciate what I have, but that there are many ways to help others even on the other side of the world.

With this experience kept firmly in my mind and closely in my heart, we left Bacoor Cavite to Batangas.

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Annie Guo is the President of Asian Avenue magazine, a monthly publication based in Denver, Colorado. This is an excerpt from the magazine.

Thank you to everyone for attending our Halloween Boo Bash and Silent Auction Fundraiser and participating in the silent auction. The event was a huge success and we were able to raise over $3000 for Children’s Hope Fund. We hope you had fun and enjoyed the event. Together we made a difference in the future of Filipino children!

Many, many thanks to all of you who came and to all our sponsors who made the event our most successful to date. A big thank you to Michelle, Anna, Brad, Rob, Ken, Fran, Melanie, Maryann, Nichole, Ron and Eric, for volunteering their time to this event many of you spent months preparing for this event. Hats off to you all! You did a tremendous job and through all of your hard work, the event came off as a huge success and I enjoyed working with you. Your continued dedication is very much appreciated. We have thus far had only positive feedback . A heartfelt thank you to all our volunteers and all the staff at Rex Lounge.

All I can say is
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

We will be updating the website with photos of the event in the coming week. Please visit soon. Thanks again to everyone who contributed their time and efforts.

“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love”. Martin Luther King Jr.

We are searching for dedicated individuals to serve as volunteer committee members. Children’s Hope Fund has an ambitious agenda for the next ten months and we need you to help us reach our goals! We’re planning on holding a meeting once a month to discuss fund-raising ideas, supply drives, social media and community outreach. There are opportunities for all who are interested in serving. With your help, we can achieve our goal of providing every child in Cavite province with the educational necessities they need to become successful students.

As Dr. King said, everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You have something valuable to offer and I would like for you to consider partnering with me and Children’s Hope Fund, to promote the education and well-being of impoverished children in the Philippines. I am confident you will find the experience rewarding and fulfilling. We need your help in order for Children’s Hope Fund to have the greatest impact and help as many children as possible.

We are very excited to announce that we have officially obtained 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. This is extremely exciting news for Children’s Hope Fund.  Thank you so much to Justin Pless and Pless Law Firm for all their assistance with the process.  This means that we can now receive donations that are tax-deductible for those giving.  We are dedicated to raising funds to help improve the lives of children living in poverty in the Philippines.  Our goal is to give children who aspire to improve their lives access to education – it’s their best chance for a better future, a chance to escape poverty.

We are grateful for the fantastic amounts of support we have received from our friends, family and colleagues.  Thank you to everyone who helped and supported us.  We are so excited for the possibilities and opportunities to help even more that this provides us, and we’re looking forward to the rest of 2010 and beyond!  You can help.   Support us.  Get involved.  Once again, thank you!

Children’s Hope Fund, Inc. is our official name. Although we are incorporated we still have not finalized our 501(c)(3) status. Getting qualified as a non-profit organization is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult, but luckily we found a wonderful lawyer who is helping us through the application process pro-bono. There remain a few details to iron out, but we’re making good progress.

We’ve accomplished many of our goals. The next big one is getting our 501(c)(3) status, and we’re working diligently on making that happen. Thank you to all who have supported us in this endeavor. We are extremely grateful for those of you who helped us out monetarily, as well as with your time, so far and we hope that you will continue to do so in the future.