For those of you who celebrate Christmas on December 25th, I wish you the best and hope that Santa was good to you and there was little coal in your stocking (though here in Armenia coal in the stocking is a good and useful thing to heat with).
During this time of giving, I want to remind our readers that by the 6th of January we have set a goal of collecting $5,000 for the people of Lachin who due to corruption are facing starvation and some even death. These people have been written about in the Armenian press since summer and are in desperate need of our help. We will make our first visit to a random village that we know people are in need of on Armenian Xmas.
For those of you who are interested, and not that a tax write off should be a determining factor, but if you out get a check out in the next few days to our non-profit NGO, you can write it off on your 2006 taxes.
The program that we have put together is called Hand-To-Hand and is intended to help the poorest of the poor in Armenia, at the same time to teach the natives about charity, empowerment and accountability.
Every family who will receive financial aid will receive it from a person who is “hired” by us to deliver your aid. By doing this we empower them to help out a fellow Armenian who is in worse shape than they are in most cases. At the same time we make our “employee” a witness to what is going on in Lachin, a place that many of our “employees” have made a sacrifice to secure with a personal injury, loss of a family member or friend. This is further empowerment with knowledge that they will without a doubt take back with them and spread to word to all their family and friends of what is really going on in Lachin.
Anyway, for those of you who want to participate and are in Armenia on the 6th of January, I invite you all to join us in Lachin. If you e-mail me at ara@snff.org, I can hook you up with the others in Yerevan who will be meeting us there so you can drive in together.
For those of you who have not yet made your donation and agree with this initiative, please read over the project and than make your donation. Though we have not received any $5, I do encourage those also. It’s not about how much you give, it’s about getting involved.
Please mail your tax-deductible contributions to:
The Shahan Natalie Family Foundation, Inc.
3727 W. Magnolia Blvd., Suite 215
Burbank, CA 91505 USA
Or you can click on the donation button below and make your donation securely via Paypal.
Oh and just a quick update of where things stand in terms of funds collected. We have officially hit the half-way point thanks to the nice people at a jewelry store my mom frequents. She went in for a new watchstrap and when she was going to pay the jeweler told her it’s on the house and to decide how much the strap is worth and to give it to charity. So in a sense, we got a donation from a jeweler for $50, which brings us up to $2,500.
I also know that there were donations sent from Chicagoland, but I’m guessing due to the holiday, mail delivery is slow right now.
One other donation we are waiting for is again thanks to my mom, who the same day she go the donation from the jeweler, went to buy a car-charger for her cell phone and the young Armenian who was working at the cell-phone store understood my mom to be Armenian (he was also) and the conversation lead to her recent donation from the jeweler. The conversation ended with this young man tell my mom to stop by on the 24th to pick up a donation from him since he didn’t have any cash with him right then.
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