Make the Change - Cassie Laurenzo

Start Date: Dec 23, 2012 12:00 AM
End Date: Jan 23, 2013 12:00 AM

Mission: Let's grow!

Make the Change's leader, Cassie, will be returning to Ghana on December 20th for 3 weeks. It will mark 4 years since her last visit and with your help, we expect this to be the biggest one yet!

Make the Change is currently working towards several goals in the village of Panpanso and we need your help! We have started to structure a program that will work towards raising the overall level of health, sanitation, education, and economy. We have a farm program that is currently in the trial phase and will be working towards providing a sustainable framework to provide jobs and create small businesses as a direct result. With your help, however, we hope to achieve much more in bringing together the overall community together next month.

Our primary goals are to provide mosquito nets for the entire village of Panpanso, potentially 1-4 rain water harvesting systems, and hopefully build some sort of small structure for Emmanuel to live in.

Emmanuel is the dedicated man who has been a part of this journey from the very beginning and currently runs all operations in Ghana. Cassie and Emmanuel met when he was just 15 years old, 5 years ago. With no family, he sold toothbrushes and toothpaste on the street every weekend to pay what he could towards his school fees every two weeks, despite it never being enough. Five years later, Emmanuel has graduated secondary school at one of the top schools in the country and is now making strides in running Make the Change.

Just to give you an idea of how much of an impact your donations make:

$5 - Provides 1 person access to purified water for six weeks

$5 – Provides 1 mosquito net for up to three people in a household. Malaria strikes most individuals 2-5 times per year resulting in 4-12 weeks that the individual is out of the work force and unable to provide for their already struggling families

$10 - Feeds 15 people for one day

$20 – Pays the school fees of one child for an entire month

$50 - Provides 1 Rain Water Harvesting Bag for year round clean water access

$100 – Provides necessary tools and supplies for a 1 acre school garden to be cared for by the students. This will provide a long-term sustainable method of income for the school to provide necessary supplies, furniture, etc.

$250 – Provides 1 foot pump irrigation system + spare parts + seeds, tools and material for a 2 acre vegetable garden to provide year round fresh vegetables and nutritrion

$500 – 1-2 self composting toilets or other localized form of sanitation

$1250 – Provides mosquito nets to the ENTIRE village of Panpanso, Ghana

$1500 – Will provide a small or modified structure for Emmanuel to live in. Emmanuel currently sleeps on the floor of an open aired school block and frequently becomes ill with malaria. We hope to build a small boarding room/house to accommodate 2-4 people <