“Hope is passion for what is possible” (Kierkegaard.) Despite how heartbreaking it is to say, many people, including children, do not have hope. They do not have many things to give them hope in life every day. Because of this, I, along with two of my friends, decided that we wanted to help fix that. We were assigned a project for school to pick something that we were passionate about and make a change in that area. All three of us have huge hearts, and it made us so sad to think of a child who does not have everything they need to survive and live a happy life. We did a lot of research on good companies to sponsor through, and we came across Holt International. Holt International is a non-profit, faith-based organization that specializes in sponsoring, adoption, and foster care. Their mission is to “ seek a world where every child has a loving and secure home.” After finding the right organization, we had to brainstorm ideas on how to raise the money. Holt International charges about $34 a month to sponsor a child, so we needed to think of reasonable prices for our product. We all decided that we were going to make shirts to sell to raise the money. Now came the hard part. We had to pick a child to sponsor. 

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While we were looking, our hearts were breaking because of how many children there were living in poverty that did not have everything they needed to survive. After a long search, we found a young girl named Milly. We all fell in love with her and teared up over her story. Milly is eight years old and lives in Uganda, Africa. Her father is absent in her life, and her mother works all day. Milly does not have proper education, food, bedding, and many other essentials that many of us here are just given. Immediately after selecting Milly to sponsor, we started to work on the shirts. We picked the design, color, sizes, and price. We used a cricket machine to print out the vinyl design. Everyone was so supportive and we finished selling the shirts with tons of orders and donations. In the end, we raised enough money to sponsor Milly for almost two years! When I look back on this project I realize how grateful I am that my school gave us a project that we were really passionate about. This project was not just a boring essay or book report, it was something that made us take the initiative to be responsible for something bigger. I hope that my story inspires you to look into sponsoring or even fostering or adopting a child who does not have much hope, and I dream that one day we will live in a world where all children live in a loving supportive home.

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Copyright © 2020 by Grace Hoffman. About the author: Grace Hoffman is a fourteen-year-old freshman in high school. She is a military kid and has subsequently moved around a lot in those fourteen years. She is known for her quiet, kind disposition and was an avid competitive gymnast for several years. She loves helping others and hopes to be a teacher one day!