Love for Syria’s DOUBLE THE HOPE 2023 Christmas Campaign

Love for Syria's DOUBLE THE HOPE 2023 Christmas Campaign

When I first heard that the organization Hope for Appalachia provides Christmas presents to children from rural Kentucky who wouldn't receive gifts otherwise, I felt a pain in my heart for those kids.

Then we at Love for Syria started brainstorming how we all can get involved….

OUR MISSION:  To DOUBLE the HOPE this Christmas by providing gifts to not one but two exceptionally vulnerable and marginalized groups:  Syrian women living as refugees and children from low-income households of the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky. 

OUR PLAN:  To gift 300 CHILDREN from rural areas in Kentucky with a cute and cuddly knitted toy, handcrafted by a Syrian woman Love for Syria helps support in Jordan.

Money raised will then be sent to Jordan where we will gift the 60 SYRIAN WOMEN we support with a Christmas Food Basket filled with oil, rice, lentils, beans, tomato paste, laundry soap, dish soap, and other pantry items.  These gifts will be handed out at a special Christmas party for the women, also made possible by your donations. 

OUR TARGET AMOUNT:  $3,000.  This provides handcrafted toys of a $10 value to 300 childrenAND a gift basket with an approximate $50 value to 60 Syrian women.

HOW CAN I HELP?

WHEN:  Love for Syria's  DOUBLE THE HOPE 2023 Christmas Campaign will run until November 28th.

WHY?  While national and international headlines remain wildly disheartening and even hopeless, today we choose to show up where we feel a tug at the strings of our hearts.  We choose to show up in the lives of people whose circumstances seem insurmountable.  We refuse to lose our interconnectedness as humans and instead, we choose to not lose hope that our best days are in front of us.

Whether we are motivated to give a little extra this Christmas season for the young boy in Kentucky who won't have anything under the tree this Christmas, or to the Syrian woman who just wants to feed her children this month, or whether we are internally craving greater sense of perspective this holiday season, we invite you to DOUBLE THE HOPE.

DONATE

Three Boys

When you look at these three boys, what young boys in your own life
first come to mind? Brothers? Sons? Nephews? Students? Family
friends? Maybe you see yourself at those ages. 20180217-borszikphotography_KB_4199 1 These photos were taken in Feb 2018. Almost four and a half years
later, these boys are now 11, 13, and 16. The oldest and youngest have the vision to become engineers. The
middle still undecided. 20180217-borszikphotography_KB_4184 1 All enjoy swimming and playing soccer while not in school. On paper
the words are ordinary, endearing, almost expected. But their childhood years have been anything but basic. Having fled a
war-torn Syria as young boys, they've spent their formative years
living as refugees in Jordan. 20180217-borszikphotography_KB_4207 Their mother is one of the 60 women Love for Syria has worked with
since 2013. She continues to knit and sell handcrafted items,
generating a bit of income to support her boys in reaching their
dreams. 20180217-borszikphotography_KB_4223 If you'd like to join Love for Syria in the shared goal of continuing
to support the children of Syria, please consider donating at
love4syria.org.

Where will these boys be in the next four years?

20180217-borszikphotography_KB_4239 We may not have those exact answers but we do know- without
hesitation- that we'll be there rooting for them. With love,
Laurie

Domino Effect

The Domino Effect

In case you missed our New Years' newsletter, here's a quick recap and an update on how Love for Syria continues to witness the Domino Effect at play.

  1. In Oct 2021, a small rural church in Virginia was hosting a yard sale with proceeds going to an impoverished school in Appalachia. Love for Syria had a small table, sold a bit of knitwear and piqued some interest in what we are all about.
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  1. This same church gave me the opportunity to share about Love for Syria on a Sunday morning in Nov 2021.
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  1. We were blown away by knitwear sales and donations!
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  1. Between donations from that church and an online giving campaign, we were able to give gifts to 130 children at that same school in rural Kentucky!
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  1. We surpassed our financial goal and with the excess were able to gift all 38 teachers and staff Love for Syria infinity scarves.
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  1. I was approached by a couple who heard me speak at church expressing their desire to do more.They had been active military deployed with the Navy in 2013, right around the time the US was contemplating an intervention.  While they never went into Syria, this couple shared with me how the magnitude of the Syrian crisis had stayed on their hearts over the years following.  She wondered what had become of the millions of refugees fleeing, if things had gotten easier or more difficult, how life was able to move on.
6 6b
  1. They decided they didn't want to ADD to Love for Syria but instead MULTIPLY.Nicole runs an online boutique of handcrafted children's clothing and accessories and she decided to donate all December proceeds of bow sales to Love for Syria!  Her initiative raised over $550 dollars, which is income for a woman FOR ALMOST SIX MONTHS while generating awareness of the Syrian crisis and inspiring others to give.

 

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This is where our New Years' blog left off….but the story isn't over!!

  1. When we received the proceeds from the bow initiative it wasn't just doubled but TRIPLED by the generosity of anonymous donors!!
  1. We've decided to press on in our initiative to PAY IT FORWARD.As donations from the fall gifted an entire school in Appalachia with knitwear, our winter donations will also be used!!
  1. Love for Syria will be starting 2022 by gifting another 85 infinity scarves to WOMEN AT A LOCAL SHELTER!!
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  1. This is where YOU come in!If your heart has been moved to be a DOMINO in this season, consider donating at love4syria.org to see your money INVESTED in the life of a refugee woman knitting to survive, using her talents to gift a woman here in the US, also in her own difficult season of life.  We have funds for 85 women right now…is there room for growth in the next week?

I feel incredibly humbled writing this.  There can be tremendous value in retracing our steps, seeing how one small action unleashed a flurry of good things.  We find the interconnectedness of our individuality breathtaking.

The sailor pictured above would have had no way to know that he'd marry the girl deployed on the ship with him in the Middle East.  They couldn't have known that they'd have a daughter who in 2021, would become the model for their campaign raising money for Syrian refugees, the exact people they sought to help eight years prior.

I never envisioned #11 when I was at #1.  But was I surprised?  Not for a second.  This has been the joy of working with Love for Syria since 2013, getting to witness first-hand every little behind-the-scenes movement, inevitably causing another domino to fall even if it's not on my exact timeline.

How various paths running separately for so long can all connect for even a split second, conspiring together, merging to do something great, weaving a beautiful tapestry full of the good moments and the bad, the highlights and the disappointments, yet grounded in a message of HOPE, that the BEST IS YET TO COME not only in the lives of the Syrian women we work with but in our own journey.

Here's to 2022 and seeing the IMMEASURABLY MORE at work!

Laurie

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