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My dad's been sponsoring a kid in Guatemala through CFCA, a christian organization, for the past couple years. A while actually, maybe as long as 10 years even I can't quite remember. It's pretty good, I think. Because of the funding she had a chance to get a good education, receive medical treatment, etc etc. Most of the major holidays we get letters from her, even.
Initially I was a bit skeptical and viewed it as a bit of a sinkhole, or whatever you want to call it, when it comes to sending that money (25 bucks a month, I believe..maybe only 20) but it seems really legit when all is said and done. Around the holidays my dad used to always attempt to send more money, as well as for her birthday and things of that nature, but they told us that they don't really encourage it because the extra funds won't get to your sponsor - rather they'd be distributed to various projects but they don't ask for it.
2 years ago we even took a trip down to the mission (brothers, father, and I) and as odd as it seemed we had a really great time. As rooted in religion as it all was, the underlying theme was helping people. Instead of sitting around and praying to God, thanking God for helping the kids etc, we took trips around the countryside helping people, distributing food, simply spending time with the people. It was all about thanking the sponsors really. We even got to meet the girl we sponsor--she came to the mission to visit, along with her parents. I'm normally ehh when it comes to that kind of thing but it was honestly awesome. My dads an old guy and her dad was probably around the same age. The whole meeting was just heartwarming. You could tell that we were helping give people opportunities that they never would've been afforded simply because of the situation they were born into. We spent a week there in Guatemala, my brothers and I playing soccer every day with these 3 younger kids, 10-14 years old. They loved us and, before we left, I gave them an old pair of sneakers, a couple t shirts, and my dad gave them 40 dollars...which we later learned was enough money to feed them for months.
This guy is the founder: http://walk2gether.org/. He was pretty interesting and the whole time we were there he was walking around with his guitar, singing folk songs and stuff. He just started this epic walk.
I didn't expect my response to be so long haha. But long story short do it. When I'm living comfortably it's something I'll certainly do, not necessarily through cfca, but I'll do it.
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