With Mother’s Day coming up, I want to give a shout-out to all the moms reading this. Nobody works harder, if I do say so myself. In fact, every mom I know is entitled to have a special day set aside just for them.
That goes double for the moms who aren’t our birth moms. They’re our Other Mothers: those special people in our lives who took us in and mothered us when, for whatever reason, Mom wasn’t there.
Nobody understands the value of Other Mothers better than the SOS Children’s Villages organization. They practically invented the idea. At the heart of each SOS family around the world is the SOS Mother – the Other Mother – who dedicates her life to raising a generation of orphaned and abandoned children as if they were her own, living with them, caring for them, comforting them, and celebrating them.
Amway’s One by One Campaign for Children is proud to partner with SOS Children’s Villages around the world, providing much-needed housing in desperately poor areas and helping these treasured Other Mothers be the moms these children would otherwise never have.
So this Mother’s Day, May 8, along with traditional moms, we’re also celebrating these unsung heroes – grandparents, aunts, family friends, neighbors, teachers – all those wonderful people who reached out and parented a kid when he or she really needed guidance.
You can celebrate your own Other Mother in a very special way, starting (appropriately enough) on Mother’s Day. The SOS Children’s Villages Other Mother contest invites you to tell the world why your Other Mother deserves to be named “Other Mother of the Year.”
Prizes include a Schwinn bike, a Nook Color™ reader from our Partner Store Barnes and Noble, or an Amway gift basket.
But the best prize of all is the wonderful tribute you’ll be giving to your very own Other Mother.
Because Mother’s Day is a special day for all moms. Maybe especially, Other Mothers. If you know one of them, it’s time to celebrate her.
Eleven months after the devastating earthquake that nearly destroyed the island nation, Haiti is in the headlines again. Cholera is becoming an epidemic there, largely because the Haitian people lack even life’s most basic needs – namely, clean water.
It’s easy to think that the situation in Haiti is simply hopeless.
At Amway however, we take a more positive approach. So, we’ve partnered with SOS Children’s Villages to build a house in Les Cayes, Haiti, for orphaned and abandoned children. Amway will provide a quarter-million dollars toward the building project, and we’re inviting Amway employees, customers, friends, and Independent Business Owners to participate as well.
One donation at a time, large or small, you can help us provide shelter for some of the many homeless, helpless children living in the streets of this tiny island nation.
Five dollars could buy five boxes of nails. Fifty dollars could enable two kids to sleep in their own bunk bed at night. One hundred dollars could purchase a window, a study desk, even a door. Ten thousand dollars covers the cost of the concrete, masonry, and foundation for an entire house.
Since our efforts began shortly after the earthquake, IBOs have been extremely generous in their contributions to the Amway Haiti Project, and we hope this giving continues. In December, during the annual back-to-back Achievers and Platinum Seminar gatherings at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, we’re going to be building a symbolic house, one foam brick at a time. Each brick will represent an individual donation.
IBOs can also text SOS with the number 90999 and a $10 donation will be automatically charged to their cell phone bill. And every IBO who donates gets an exclusive Haiti Project wristband.
Through these efforts, we hope to raise $30,000 toward our overall goal of $70,000, to enable SOS to operate the house for a year. That’s in addition to the more than $1 million in cash, products, and services collected by Amway, our employees, and IBOs, and put to use in Haiti during the immediate earthquake relief efforts.
Every dollar counts toward caring for a needy child who’s facing the world alone. And if you live in the U.S., your donation is fully tax-deductible.
Learn more about the Amway Haiti Project. Then, visit the SOS Children’s Village site and donate what you can. We thank you in advance for your continued support.
While the “power of positive” serves as a key foundation for business, sometimes we need to reach out to others who could use some of that positive energy – people who could use a little hope, and a lot of help.
Consider, for instance, the many children in Haiti who have been left parentless by the disastrous earthquake that gutted the island nation last January. We all saw the images on the newscasts last winter: Kids young and old, roaming around aimlessly, without guidance, and worst of all, without hope.
Thankfully, Amway, our employees, and our Independent Business Owners (IBOs) are helping to provide a loving home – and a brighter future – for at least some of these orphaned children.
We’re partnering with SOS Children’s Villages to build 15 family houses, each supporting nine children and their SOS house “mother,” on the southwestern coast of Haiti. We also plan to have a kindergarten, a primary school, a medical center, and a community health center there.
SOS Children's Villages is the world's largest charity dedicated to orphaned and abandoned children. They’ve built and managed more than 500 permanent-care orphanages around the world, many of which are supported by Amway and our global affiliates.
Amway has just committed $250,000 to help build these SOS Village homes. Plus, we’re hoping to raise additional funds from employees, IBOs, customers, and friends worldwide.
So, if you’d like to help us bring “the power of positive” to a country that could really use it, please visit the Amway website or our Facebook page for details on how you can donate.
While Haiti no longer commands Page One attention, Amway understands the children of that earthquake-ravaged country still need our help – and our hope for their brighter future