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Bundles of Joy - Quarterly Newsletter
January 2009, Volume 2, Issue 1
Inside This Issue:
Fundraisers
How You Can Get Involved
Special Thanks
Big Goals, Wild Dreams
Bundles of Joy’s 1-year Anniversary!How far we’ve come…..
As Bundles of Joy's first year in operation comes to an end, I can happily say that I am surprised and impressed by our accomplishments! We have come a long way since we established Bundles of Joy as a non-profit organization in January of 2008. In our first year, we collected donations of food, medicine, school supplies, used clothes, shoes, toys and books. The value of these donations was in excess of $28,000! The donated items were shipped to the Philippines where they were distributed to hundreds of needy families. About five percent of the items we received were heavy coats and sweaters that we passed on to local charities in San Mateo County, California, as they would be inappropriate for the tropical weather in the Philippines. In addition to our in-kind donations, late last year we also started to accept monetary donations online. So far we have collected $600 online, and we hope to collect more as our online communities on change.org and facebook.com continue to grow.
What impresses me most though, is that people outside of our circle of family and friends are starting to find us on their own! We have been working on publicity through search engine marketing, email campaigns, and by distributing flyers. The city of Foster City, California was generous enough to give us free advertising on the city’s electronic marquee. We also had a collection barrel in the city’s Recreation Center through the holiday season. When we started Bundles of Joy last year, our grassroots operation relied solely on the generosity of our friends and family. As we expand our reach we are happy to find so much more generosity around us.
Our goals for 2009 are to continue to ship basic necessities to impoverished areas and to also establish educational and career development programs in those areas. (See page 4 for more on our goals for 2009.) We hope that these programs will help bring an end to the cycle of poverty that so many families in the Philippines face. Thank you all for your continued kindness and support of our mission!
Please stay tuned to keep up with our progress!
- Sondra Suazo, President
What We've Been Up To
We’ve been busy lately!
Holiday Fundraising Drive 2008
This past holiday season, the City of Foster City, California was so generous as to give us free advertising on the city’s electronic marquee. We also placed a collection barrel in the city’s Recreation Center during the holiday season. We received numerous donations of food, toys and clothes from many generous city residents. We also received donations from the Filipino Student Club of Rancho Milpitas Middle School and Girl Scout Troop 436 of Foster City. The fundraising drive was a big success!
Church “Twinning” Drive
In early 2009, we will start a fundraising drive in conjunction with St. Mark’s Catholic Church of Belmont, California. This drive will be a “twinning” project. St. Mark’s Parish will become a “twin,” or supporter of, Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Parañaque, Metro Manila, Philippines. St. Mark’s parishioners will be encouraged to donate non-perishable food and used clothes. The Home Life Ministries Team of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish will distribute the donations to needy families in Parañaque. The children of St. Mark’s will work together to collect used shoes and brand new school supplies for the poor children of St. Hannibal School in Parañaque. We expect this to be a very successful project!
2008 Christmas Distributions
Special distributions were held at Christmastime in Carcar and Parañaque, Philippines. Donations from Bundles of Joy were packaged by our partners and distributed to needy families in these areas. Donations from other groups in Canada and the Philippines were packaged along with those from Bundles of Joy, so that our partners were able to distribute food, clothes, medicine and toys to hundreds of needy families. The pictures below are from the Christmas distribution in Carcar.
More Ways to Support Bundles of Joy
There are so many easy ways that you can help us help the people of the Philippines…
JOIN OUR ONLINE NETWORK OF SUPPORTERS
- To become a Bundles of Joy supporter on Change.org:
1) Log onto www.change.org/bundlesofjoy
2) Click on the “JOIN” link at the top right-hand side of the page.
3) Fill in your name, address and e-mail address. Click on “SIGN UP.”
- You can also join our Facebook group “Bundles of Joy”.
MAKE A DONATION
- All donations are tax-deductible. Make a monetary donation online by going to www.change.org/bundlesofjoy and clicking on the “DONATE NOW” button.
- If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like to donate your used clothing, shoes, toys or books, please contact us at info@givebundlesofjoy.org to schedule a pick-up.
FUNDRAISE FOR US
- Create a fundraising page for Bundles of Joy and ask your family and friends to help you support this cause.
Simply go to the link below and click "Start a Fundraising Page"
http://www.change.org/nonprofits/projects/index/173121
SPREAD THE WORD
- We are a young non-profit organization and we need your help to get our name out. Please spread the
word about our mission!
Many of you are already taking part in our mission, and we thank you whole-heartedly for your generosity and support. This is a big job; we can’t do it alone.
Maraming Salamat!
Bundles of Joy has more people to thank than could possibly fit on this page!
Special thanks to the City of Foster City, the Filipino Student Club of Rancho Milpitas Middle School, the Girl Scouts of Foster City Troop 436, and to all the individuals who have so kindly made donations to Bundles of Joy. Thank you also to the freight forwarding companies through which we ship balikbayan boxes of donations to the Philippines: CDC Global Link, LBC Corp and Alpha Cargo.
But most especially, we must thank our partners in the Philippines without whom none of this would even be possible. For finding recipient families and making sure that all of our donations make it into the hands of those who need them most, huge thanks to Carol & Noel Risos and the Home Life Ministries team of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Parañaque, Metro Manila, Philippines, and to Vic Suazo, Kathleen Chiongbian, and their families in Cebu City, Philippines. Without these partners in the Philippines, all our efforts here in the United States would be for naught.
Once again, MARAMING SALAMAT! (Translation from Tagalog: THANK YOU!)
What Lies Ahead 
Our efforts in 2008 were limited for many months as we awaited the approval of our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status from the IRS. For much of the 2008 calendar year, we were forced to limit our solicitation. We could not approach companies or the general public to ask for donations until we could prove that we were recognized by the United States government as a legitimate nonprofit organization. Our 501(c)(3) status was approved in August of 2008, and since then we have picked up steam in our fundraising efforts, but we have even more ambitious goals for 2009.
In 2008 we collected donated items worth $28,000. In 2009, we hope to collect even more as we begin to approach local businesses for donations of their overstocked items. And we are planning an elegant benefit dinner for September of 2009 to raise funds for future projects. We also hope to work with MedShare, a nonprofit organization that sends donated hospital supplies and equipment to deprived hospitals in developing countries. Another project we are working on is a program to send American students on semesters abroad to the Philippines where they can teach math, English and computer skills to poor children in the provinces. As you can see, we have a lot to do in 2009! We hope that you will be along for the ride.