Sponsorships! Get 'em While They're Hot!

Do you know that feeling when absolutely every bit of laundry in your home is clean, folded, and put away? Well, neither do I, but people assure me this is a real (albeit rare) phenomenon. For a brief and shining moment last week, this same sort of rare event occurred with Manna 4 Lempira. There was a point where every single child in the Manna program was sponsored. That’s right. If you went to the website and narrowed your search to “Unsponsored” children, there were no photos to scroll through. Just like the clean laundry comparison, it didn’t last. But still, we know it is possible! (When we say Manna4Lempira, please keep in mind this does not include the sister church sponsorship programs - several of them have gotten down to zero unsponsored kids in the past)

So you know, when I posted this, all the kids pictured in this post were unsponsored - but we'll see how long that lasts! Like the lady said, get 'em while they're hot!

Janckel here was feeling shy, so he took his photo with his mom

Milton looks like a fun guy!

At the time of this writing, there are 31 brand spankin’ new-to-the-program kids available for sponsorship. That’s not a lot, but everyone would love to see them sponsored. This is how Trish and Kelsea are spending their time for the next several weeks. Sixty Manna kids were removed from the program because they moved or stopped attending school for any number of reasons. Then 130 new kids were added. So, as you can see 99 of those have already been sponsored. This year, Kim, Trish and Kelsea worked to make a special offer to current sponsors. If a new child had a sibling in the program, that sibling’s sponsor was notified. A lot of the sponsors went ahead and snatched up the siblings, photo unseen! 

I bet Lesmin is looking
forward to having a
new pen pal!

Trish and Kelsea are working on all of the sponsorship programs. They have to figure out which children are no longer in the program and notify their sponsors. Then they remove those kids from the website and add in the new children. Entering a child to the system requires uploading a shiny new photo and adding their full names, favorite colors, plus a little bit about the child. It’s not a small project. If we want to return to the laundry analogy, this is like someone who actually sorts their clothes and follows the care instructions on the tags rather than shoving everything in together and hoping it all doesn’t come out pink. (Yes, my mama did raise me better than that, but I’m a bit of a laundry rebel.) Paper profiles are also created for each child so their sponsors will have something to print up and put on the fridge.

You might notice that there are quite a few really little ones available for sponsorship. That’s because Honduras mandated preschool a while back. Just because they “have to” attend doesn’t mean they can attend. Sowers4Pastors figured they would provide the needed backpacks of supplies for preschoolers, too. Backpack day can be overwhelming for the little ones, so some of the photos are of a child crying in a mom’s arms. Trish insists they’ll be ready to pose for the camera next year. You can also see that almost every child currently available for sponsorship is a boy. This has been an ongoing area of concern because boys are less likely to be selected by sponsors. 

Mario's not angry - he's just not sure how he
 should act in front of the camera!
This might be the first time he's ever had his photo taken.

Sowers4Pastors is very excited that people are stepping up to sponsor off the website. Hopefully the kids will be attending their brick and mortar schools soon. If not, there will still be education happening. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if these children could find sponsorship sooner rather than later?

If you are looking for a kid to sponsor, click HERE to see the most current list of unsponsored kids in the Manna program!

- posted by Christi