Empowering Children and Communities Around the Globe

Each year, it seems the holiday season gets more hectic and commercial. Even those of us with the best intentions get caught up in frantically shopping, decorating, planning, and cooking. In the end, we’re often left wishing for a more meaningful expression of the season. Rather than giving a token gift to charity this year, consider researching organizations with your family and supporting a cause that you are all truly passionate about.

Nathan Randel, Managing Partner of Trinity Merchant Group, celebrates the true spirit of Christmas with his family by sponsoring children through World Vision. “Contributing to World Vision is a family tradition that my parents began almost twenty years ago. Not only have they continued to sponsor several children each year, now my wife and I sponsor three as well.”

World Vision is a faith-based humanitarian organization empowering children and communities around the globe by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. Supported by more than one million individual donors, thousands of churches and businesses, and hundreds of foundations, organizations, and government agencies, World Vision raised more than a billion dollars in 2010. Those funds helped provide emergency and hunger relief, community development, agricultural development assistance and leadership training in 100 countries throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. The organization also educates the public on poverty and justice related issues and advocates on behalf of the poor and children in crisis. Here’s a look at what they were able to accomplish in 2010 alone:

• Emergency relief: World Vision responded to some 80 emergencies in 2010 by providing food aid, basic supplies and child-protection centers.
  
• Humanitarian crises: World Vision is responding to complex humanitarian emergencies around the globe, including Haiti, DRC, Sudan and Somalia.
  
• Child sponsorship: Nearly 4 million children are assisted through sponsorship programs worldwide.
• Food aid: World Vision distributed 169,000 metric tons of food for the United Nations' World Food Programme and U.S. government programs in 2010.
  
• Clean water: In 2010, World Vision dug 305 wells in West Africa, expanding access to clean water to an additional 151,500 people in the region.
  
• HIV and AIDS: World Vision’s care and prevention work in AIDS-affected communities started in 1990 in Uganda, and is now in 60 countries, including most of sub-Saharan Africa.
  
• Development: In 2010, more than 638,000 men and women in 40 developing countries began building their own businesses with small loans received through World Vision’s micro-finance programs.