Todays note is written by board member Linda Shaul, she heads up our friendship, student tuition program as well as our sponsorship programs. Enjoy! If interested in learning more. please email me at robert@gibtk.org or linda@givingitbacktokids.org
This has been such a difficult time for families everywhere around the world. Not being able to be with the people that are most important to you, that support and encourage you or that you can hug, listen to and tell them that you care, has been so very hard. Family is what holds us together when we think we cannot go on. We celebrate the successes and lift each other up through the sorrows.
We are a family at Giving It Back To Kids. The children in our homes consider GIBTK as their second home. And unfortunately for some, it is their only family. There are many different circumstances among the children that live in our homes, but one thing that they all need, like any other child, is love and encouragement. A kind word, knowing that someone cares about their life and what they are doing means more than you would ever know.
Our Friendship Program is a way that you can give one child some hope that they can succeed and have a better life. Emailing four letters a year to answer their quarterly letters about their life in the last three months sends a powerful encouragement and hope to the students. The students keep those letters they receive, bringing them out and reading them over and over. They talk about how someone they have never met, that lives around the world, cares about them, is their friend and "always walks beside me in the letters."
One young man, who has no family, has been in our care since he was very young. He was loved and encouraged to grow and be successful by the housemothers, staff and any guests he would meet. He receives letters from a friend in the Friendship Program. He is kind, intelligent, hard-working, with a caring heart, always reaching out to help others. It is so exciting to see him now graduate from University, being able to achieve his dream. He knows that people care about him and that he will always be a part of the GIBTK family.
Because new students are continually joining our homes in Vietnam and Cambodia, new donors wanting to financially support a home or a student are always appreciated. However, for those unable to provide financial support at this time, providing emotional support and encouragement through emailed letters in the Friendship Programs changes lives too.
We would like every child in our homes to feel that someone special cares about them and encourages them to do their best, for them to have a special donor or friend to build a relationship with through email. It is also very important that this a long term commitment to write until the student leaves GIBTK for an independent life after completing university or advanced trade schools.
Students currently needing a donor or "friend" in the Friendship Program to write and encourage them are young ladies in Cambodia ages 12-20. In Vietnam there are boys ages 12-22, Lighthouse has a need for new 18 year old young ladies and The Father's House has young single mothers age 17-21. They all would love to have someone special to answer their quarterly letters and encourage them in their journey like the other students in the homes.
If you are interested in encouraging a child as either a donor or in the Friendship Program, or have any questions about either, please contact me at linda@givingitbacktokids.org
There is nothing that warms my heart more than seeing the happy, excited, hopeful faces of the kids in our homes in Vietnam and Cambodia... except being able to hug them. Looking forward to being able to do that again as soon as possible.
Linda
Robert Kalatschan
