Sponsor Information

We at Hearth to Hearth Ministries are unique in our approach to sponsorship. Where most organizations double or triple sponsor each child, each child you sponsor with Hearth to Hearth has only one sponsor – you. We want our children to develop a bond with their sponsor. In true African fashion, many of the children will even take a part of their sponsor’s name to add to their own. We encourage our Administrators to help the children memorize their sponsor’s name and to think of that sponsor as a loving
“adoptive” parent. This is a privilege not to be taken lightly.  You can see photos of African orphans that need sponsors.

We are also unique in allowing you to post mail directly to your child. We hope to continue doing so indefinitely, as long as the privilege is not abused. Recently, we have received reports of children or widows writing directly to their sponsor and asking for various items. Please do not encourage your child or widow to write to you directly and please do not encourage e-mail or phone communication. To do so, can cause many unimaginable problems and will be one of the quickest ways to ensure that we can no longer allow the direct communication from your end that you now enjoy. If you receive such a letter, please report it immediately to your Sponsorship Coordinator. Doing so will help to ensure that we are able to continue this practice as it now stands.

As you have no doubt heard recently on the news, the US dollar has very significantly declined in value at the very time when the costs of food worldwide have significantly increased. According to a recent World Bank report entitled “Rising Food Prices: Policy Options and World Bank Response,” increases in global wheat prices reached 181 per cent over the 36 months leading up to last February, while overall global food prices increased by 83 per cent. Such increases inevitably impact on the cost of meeting the needs of each orphan or widow in our program. In addition, the cost of providing education to our children is very substantial, especially at the secondary school level. While we are currently holding the line on the sponsorship fee per child, because we do not practice multiple sponsorships per child we must find other avenues to make up the quite considerable difference between the $30.00 sponsorship fee and the costs that we are actually experiencing.

The coupons sent out twice yearly by the treasurers give you an option to voluntarily increase your monthly sponsorship donation if you are able to do so. We are also researching other sponsorship options to help increase the needed revenue to support the children. Some of these options include sponsoring teachers and other orphanage staff, sponsoring a school uniform, etc. We will let you know more about these other options as they materialize. Meanwhile, please let us know immediately if you are
able to voluntarily increase your monthly support to help with this urgent need.

We sincerely hope that your relationship with Hearth to Hearth Ministries, and with your sponsored child or widow, will prove mutually beneficial to all concerned and that you will be enthusiastic in sharing the vision with your friends and family.

The following information will clarify certain issues relating to your sponsorship

• The ministry of Hearth to Hearth is now a 501(c)(3) organization. Since September 17, 2007, your
• donations have been fully tax deductible.
• We refer to the African pastors who actually operate our orphanages and widows’ projects as our “Administrators.”
• Letters need to be posted directly to the children by the sponsors. You will find the address on the Quick Reference Sheet sent to you when you first sponsored your child. Please keep it handy. If you need another Quick Reference Sheet, contact the Sponsorship Coordinator sponsorship@hearthtohearth.org.
• Please do not include money either in cash, checks or money orders in letters you send to your child. It will likely be stolen or worse. One sponsor included a $10.00 check for her child’s birthday. It was intercepted by someone (possibly a worker at the Post Office) the amount was changed to $4,000.00 and the check was cashed. She learned of it when police came to her door.
• Please do include photos of your family and maybe stickers or other small gifts that will fit into a regular envelope.
• We are discouraging sending gifts or packages due to several factors:
• Packages are costly to send and to receive.
• Packages are easily lost in the mail.
• Goods purchased locally help the local economy.
• It places a burden on our administrators to keep track of them and to send us a report.
• We want our children to learn to be grateful and to say thank-you for gifts received. However, many of the children are too small, or do not know enough English to write their own thank-you letters and there is not adequate staff to facilitate such a massive effort.
• If you intend to send a gift or package anyway, please contact your Sponsorship Coordinator to learn the proper way to do so. Customs duty can be quite excessive. Your Sponsorship Coordinator can help you to keep these costs lower. Please also inform your Sponsorship Coordinator of the date your package was sent, the general contents, the value you indicated on the customs form and the amount of postage paid. Without this information, there is no way your package can be tracked to see if it arrives. Even then, tracking is not always possible. If you send a package, you must be willing to assume the risk that it may never arrive, and that if it does you may never know.
• We are also discouraging sending monetary gifts for your child unless you have been informed of a specific need. Again, there are several factors.
• Receipting and tracking such gifts has proven to be an extra burden on our treasurers.
• The logistics of shopping for children individually at the whim of the sponsors is a burden on our Administrators.
• No matter how much we trust our Administrators are doing their best to follow directions regarding a multitude of individual gift directives (and we know they are), we simply have no way to track such gifts.
• Instead of packages or monetary gifts for individual children, we recommend a donation to our Gift Pool. The Gift Pool helps to ensure that children are treated equally. We have learned that while some sponsors send regular packages and/or monetary gifts to their child, others will send nothing at all. It is difficult for our Administrators to deal with a situation whereby their children do not all get equal treatment. The gift pool is intended to see that each child receives a gift twice a year. (Usually Christmas and birthday.)
• Please be advised that our Administrators have requested that the sponsors understand that your child will be encouraged to share any gift they receive with others at the point where that gift goes beyond the child’s own personal needs.
• Letters from children or widows to sponsors are periodically posted to our office. Under normal circumstances we expect them at least twice a year. Unfortunately, circumstances are not always normal. At this time, we are experiencing civil unrest in Kenya and things are very much out of the norm. Please understand that we can make no promises.
• If at any time you find you are unable to continue with sponsorship, please let your Sponsorship Coordinator know as soon as possible so that we can work to soften the impact on your child by finding another sponsor quickly to love and support that child. We would also encourage you to continue any established correspondence patterns so that the child does not feel rejected just because you can no longer sponsor.