This is a continuation of our series on giving, stewardship and charitable giving (go to Part 1 here).

Today, we want to highlight some of the organizations with whom we work. You can read more about these organizations at our stewardship and charitable giving page on our website.

At the end of each quarter, The Marketing Twins at 1429 Creative give a portion of our quarterly sales to one of the 3 charities listed below.

Christ’s Haven for Children (Keller, TX)
Christ’s Haven for Children provides a warm, loving, Christian environment in which children in need of basic care can grow physically, emotionally, and spiritually to become productive citizens in society. The Marketing Twins at 1429 Creative offered a monetary donation at the end of 1Q08. To accompany the financial gift, we offered the organization 5 hours of FREE marketing support that they can use whenever they need it.

Our Father’s Children – Royal Family Kids Camp (Hurst, TX)

The mission of of OFC is “reaching out to abused and neglected children – bringing hope to the future, one child at a time.”  Under the umbrella of OFC is a unique opportunity for kids who are desperate for HOPE!  The week-long camps called “Royal Family Kids Camps” are wonderful opportunities to touch the lives of kids who have been ravaged by horrific environments.  Donny, the other Marketing Twin, has been involved in RKFC for a decade – he has participated in the camps each summer for a majority of those years.  Last month, Donny and I took a day away and spent the afternoon assisting the camp throw huge birthday party for all these kids – for most of them, it was the only birthday party they had ever experienced!  Dancing, cake, swimming, bounce houses, rock climbing walls – it was a blast, and even more fun to see the faces of the kids light up when they got their special gift box with their name on it!  These are unique and important occasions and we are eager to continue supporting Our Father’s Children and RKFC!

Village of Hope Orphanage
(Benin, West Africa)

For almost a decade, my wife and I were training for and serving as missionaries in Benin, West Africa.  In addition to making a number of great lifelong friends (on another post, I’ll have to share about how we adopted our 4th child from Benin), we became good friends with a local orphanage and its director.  They are a local organization with little or no outside support – they are a private institution that needs help!  When you visit the Village of Hope (the kids called it “Villope”!), you hear the heart-wrenching stories of kids who have been sent to the orphanage because their parents have HIV or have died of AIDS.  And a number of the kids have been rescued from child trafficking efforts to take the kids into enslavement of the cocoa fields in other parts of West Africa.

My wife and I will be returning to Benin to visit in late August.  We will be visiting many friends but will also spend some time at the Village of Hope.  We have launched a campaign to raise $3000 to assist the orphanage with money to feed two meals a day to the 75+ kids and help them enclose their kitchen.  Right now the kitchen is a traditional outdoor African kitchen nestled under a thin sheet of rusty tin near a mango tree.  While functional for most African families, to feed 75 people in these conditions (especially during the rainy season) is an overwhelming challenge.  We have set up a website where you can view pictures of the kids at the orphanage.  Please consider as well joining us in reaching our goal of $3,000.  We are over half-way there because of the generosity of friends and clients of ours!  You can donate online at www.BeninKids.com.

We are thankful that you have allowed us to share some of what’s important to us.  These are the greater things that we all need to be doing (you choose what causes resonate the most with you).  It’s more than just about profits, making money and building bigger businesses.  Those are the means by which you can impact your local community and the world.

At the end of the day it feels good to give back. It feels good knowing we make a difference in the life of a child.
We use our resources to positively impact our world. And to us…
that’s doing GREATER THINGS!

-Randy

PS – Would you seriously consider a small online donation ($25) to support the Village of Hope in West Africa?  The children would be so grateful.