News
Following the Call to Uganda
Jake and Khara Tirabassi, members of RockHarbor Church in Costa Mesa, are making a giant leap of faith as they travel to Uganda, answering God’s call in their lives.
They came to Giving Children Hope over the years for multiple medical missions trips and visited us once again in preparation for their most recent medical missions trip: a two-week trip with RockHarbor Church to provide wound care, medical clinic work, and more. Following the two-week trip with RockHarbor, however, both Jake and Khara will stay in Uganda.
They will both be working and volunteering in Uganda for a year. Khara is working with Remnant Uganda , a clothing company that empowers women of Uganda in the cycle of poverty and sexual exploitation with vocational training, financial security, and education. Jake will be working with Gulu Bible Community Church and Congolese Refugees to provide mentorships and sports ministry, bringing community outreach, sports, education, and the word of God to the local regions.
We are grateful for their partnership and so encouraged by their faith. Keep Jake and Khara, their partnerships, their work in Uganda, and the communities they will be impacting in your prayers. You may also follow their blog at Jake and Khara.
We’ve Got the Holiday Spirit
For the past few weeks, Giving Children Hope staff, donors, supporters, partners and volunteers have been working around the clock to gather and wrap presents for homeless children in Orange County. This week, all the hard work paid off as we began distribution to more than 3,000 kids in the Orange County School Districts.
Each child was asked to complete a wish list of items they would like for the holidays. Some of the most heartbreaking requests were received on this lists: a job for my dad, presents for my brothers and sisters, a Christmas Tree, a house for my family, and much more.
Though many of these requests couldn’t be met, GCHope and supporters worked hard to bring a little bit of joy into the lives of these children in need. Every child enrolled in We’ve Got Your Back, a weekend nutrition program that provides essential and nutritious meals and nutrition education to homeless children and their families each week, was given a present for the holidays. In addition to these presents, toys were also given to their siblings as well!
Thank you to the hundreds of donors, sponsors, volunteers and supporters who helped to make the holidays magical and bright for the needy community in Orange County. We could not have done it without you and Christmas wouldn’t be the same to these families without all of your help. We are very grateful for your support!
See a video of the distribution here
Give a Gift that Gives Back
For this holiday season, give a gift that gives back!
Sponsor a LifeStraw® in honor of a loved one and receive a beautiful card explaining the impact of your gift.
Just $20 gives the gift of clean water to a child or family in developing nations around the world for a year. With a LifeStraw® water purification system, 99.9% of bacteria and viruses are removed from the water, providing safe drinking water and positively impacting the health of the most vulnerable populations including children, pregnant women and those with debilitated immune systems.
LifeStraw® sponsorship is the perfect gift for that hard-to-shop for family member or the humanitarian-minded friend.
Give the gift of life this holiday season through clean drinking water! Your gift can save a life!
For more information, or to sponsor a LifeStraw for a loved one, visit our store today!
Merry Christmas!
Toys for Tots Arrive!
Every winter, Giving Children Hope begins the happiest and most joyful time of the year: the holiday season for We’ve Got Your Back. In addition to providing backpacks filled with nutritious food and nutrition education each and every week, GCHope also provides families with toys for the children for the holidays. Every child is invited to complete a wish list for themselves and their siblings and volunteers, donors and corporations are able to sponsor these children.
With more than 3,000 students in the program, however, some children are left un-sponsored. This is where Toys for Tots comes in! After years of partnership with Toys for Tots, we were once again joining forces to provide toys and gifts for the kids of We’ve Got Your Back and their siblings!
GCHope staff was ecstatic when we received that call that we would be receiving more than 1,000 toys! Volunteers have been working to sort toys by gender and age ranges and wrapping the presents in preparation for toy distribution later this month.
Thank you so much, Toys for Tots, for allowing GCHope to continue with our commitment to serve the homeless children of Orange County with so much more than just food. We are so thankful for your partnership again this year!
Nutrilite’s CAN-do attitude
Just up the street from the Giving Children Hope facility is a large building filled with employees with even larger hearts. Nutrilite has partnered with GCHope for years, taking special attention to care for the We’ve Got Your Back program and all the children and families it supports.
Weekly, volunteers from Nutrilite come to the GCHope offices to sort canned food items, pack backpacks and prepare shipments. Nutrilite even went above and beyond at our facilities recently and sponsored a landscaping staff to beautify our building.
As an internal event this month, Nutrilite challenged staff to participate in “Nutrilite’s CAN-struction,” where employees could bring canned food items to support We’ve Got Your Back and build a giant can apple!
More than 1,400 cans were collected and constructed. Giving Children Hope was then called to pick up the collection and provide these generous food donations to the children and families benefiting from We’ve Got Your Back.
Thank you so much, Nutrilite, for your continued partnership and support! We are so thankful to have friends and partners in you!
