The Grow Hope Foundation has been around for over 6 years now, and it's been an incredible six years. We started working with a small part of our community, teaching them about the importance of good sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition. Once we saw the impact that those simple lessons had we expanded to working with the women in our community, teaching them handcrafts as well as talking to them about how to manage the money that they earned. We also taught them how to grow healthy produce at their homes for their families. We then created a Business Training program to help young people take their business ideas and create a plan that will enable them to actually put those plans into action. We've also worked with a group of women who meet weekly and have created a community savings program. With a small amount of seed money we began granting loans to each of those women, which is available once they have a solid business plan that is supported by the group. The fund grows with the interest that is paid on the loans. Not only are these women growing their small businesses, but they are an incredible support network for each other. And most recently we began the Give Girls A Voice program which educates girls on subjects such as how their bodies work, appropriate relationship boundaries, and self-worth and value. The changes we have seen in the girls within the 8 schools we now work in are incredible.

Over those six years we have been blessed with an amazing group of monthly donors, some of which have been around since the very beginning. They donate anywhere between $10-100 a month. This money allows us to run our programs, maintain Tusubira Village, our 5 acre educational compound in rural Uganda, and pay our social worker, who runs all of our programs. But I need to tell you, while talking to Dr. Isaac tonight, I learned that not only are we not bringing in enough to cover our bills each month, but that we pay the person who keeps all of our programs running a small portion of what she should actually be earning. You see, in the six years since we began, donors have signed on and allowed us to do the work that we do. But over time, credit cards expire and aren't renewed, circumstances change for people, and while we have gained new donors, we have slowly lost a number of them as well.

So friends, we are at a point where we really need to build up our monthly donor team again. The work that we are doing is making such an incredible impact on this community, and it's spreading. Where we used to work within the area of a couple of schools, we now work with the communities of EIGHT schools. And I'm so very proud of the work because it's giving people a chance to change their circumstances- ON THEIR OWN - and really, that's the only sustainable way to do it. I believe in this work friends, and I will do whatever I can to continue to support our team working so hard on the ground in Uganda. I'm not a great fundraiser- anyone who knows me knows that. It is definitely not my superpower. I can hold a one-time fundraiser for certain expenses and you guys show up, big time. But this isn't about a new well or an education building. This is about keeping the work we already do going, work that has been making such an impact on this community.

So if you are already a donor, would you be willing to share the link to this post with your community? If you aren't yet a donor but have considered it, I come to you to ask that you make that commitment now. It's so simple- you enter your credit card or set it up to direct debit your bank, and then you don't think about it again, until you see your thank you note and tax receipt each month in your email box. And in return, you gain the knowledge that YOU are making the lives of a community half a world away a better, healthier, safer place. YOU are giving girls and women a chance at something different, you are giving them hope. And you are bringing me so much joy and gratitude- more than you can imagine.

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