Turning Orange into Green…

This fall at Children International headquarters, a small group of employees has started and maintained a pumpkin patch whose proceeds are designed to ease the burdens of a couple families.

The pumpkins were purchased at wholesale prices and have been displayed in the parking lot, where Children International workers can buy them at market prices. So far, over 100 pumpkins have been sold!



Pumpkin patch profits have been designated for the purchase of a sewing machine for an entrepreneurial mother in Ecuador who has recently fallen on hard times. And the rest of the profits will go directly to Indian families whose homes were destroyed by recent floods.

Eddie Welsh, who helped start the project explains, “This patch is just one small thing, but for the families who will receive relief, it’s huge! If we all keep doing small things they will all add up to something big.”

Fallout from Felix

Reports from Children International agencies in Guatemala and Honduras indicate they have experienced serious flooding from Hurricane Felix. Our staff in San Pedro Sula (Honduras) report that the government evacuated residents from low-lying parts of El Milagro, including families of sponsored children. In Guatemala, evacuations as a result of Felix have not been necessary.

Agency personnel in Honduras and Guatemala are on the ground gathering information and checking on the wellbeing of sponsored children and their families. Our experienced staff stands ready to provide immediate relief for affected sponsored families as needed.

Felix crashed ashore early Tuesday morning near the Honduras-Nicaragua borders as a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds. It was the second Category 5 storm to hit Central America this year. Hurricane Dean slammed into the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico just two weeks ago, marking the first recorded instance of two such storms making landfall in a single hurricane season since record keeping began in 1886.


It is Children International’s policy to contact sponsors when we can verify their sponsored child has been directly affected by a disaster.

For updates on the region, visit our website at www.children.org, or check back here on the blog.

A Tragic Flood…And Stolen Hearts

As I write this, I’m looking at a little red rock I keep on my desk. There’s nothing really outstanding about the rock – but what it represents will stay with me forever.

I picked the rock up from the bed of the Rio Madre Vieja, in Patulul, Guatemala. What’s unusual about a river rock? Nothing…except just three months before, where I was standing was not a riverbed at all.

The place where I was standing used to be 18 feet higher. In fact, it was the site of Don Pedro Zunun’s home – a home he had worked for close to 20 years to build. His face filled with shock and pain, Don Pedro told us that he had not even bought a new pair of pants in all those years, just so he could provide a home for his family.

Everything changed when heavy rains caused a mudslide on a nearby mountainside. The raging torrent that resulted was so powerful that it completely altered the course of the river, taking with it homes – including Don Pedro’s – as well as lives, livelihoods…and dreams.

The little girl in the photo below was not aware that our photographer Javier was capturing her picture. She was not sponsored, and her home had suffered heavy damages from the flood. Javier snapped her picture as she watched wistfully while a neighboring family with sponsored children received a load of building materials to repair their own flood-damaged house.


Days later I shared Jessica’s photo with my wife and her gentle innocence captured our hearts. We couldn’t help but want to sponsor her. That’s one of the greatest satisfactions of working for Children International: being able to help children as a professional – and as a sponsor.

Thanks for letting me share the joy sponsorship has brought to my family. If you have any special stories you’d like to share about your own experiences as a sponsor, why not add them as a comment on this post?