A Touch of Love Foundation
604 Hupa St., Ventura, CA 93001 805-641-2800 1-877-273-2549

Thank you for your generous support

A Touch of Love Foundation continues to provide essential services to those in desperate need, particularly children, in India including the tsunami affected area, Ghana, Argentina, the Dominican Republic and local projects in Southern California. As you may know, we are an all-volunteer organization with no paid staff in the U.S., so 100% of your contributions go to our programs. Any overhead costs, such as this web site, are covered by our sale of Indian crafts at fairs in Southern California.  These fairs also raise thousands for project development.

Our philosophy is to enable sustainable village development. We offer the services a community wants and needs and pay local people a fair wage to provide them, thus supporting the local economy.  We now employ 29 people at project sites, including doctors, nurses, a dentist, teachers, cooks, and social workers. We develop our programs personally, in conjunction with community leaders, and oversee them in person. We’re excited by the growth of our ongoing programs and by our ability to add new programs to our mission of supporting those in terrible need. Your participation, interest, and financial support constantly surprise, delight, and encourage us to continue expanding and developing new programs to reach more and more children.

 NEWSLETTER

  MORE CHILDREN ADDED IN GHANA

It is always a difficult experience going to Ghana and seeing the condition of the AIDS orphans there. We get so many children being raised by grandparents and even then sometimes the grandparents die due to natural old age. We had one girl we met in October who lost both parents and was living with her mother’s mother. Then that grandmother died and her father’s mother found her and she was living with her last relative and barely getting by. Her elderly grandmother was doing her best, going back to menial labor to provide what she could. School fees and medicine were out of the question. We found this little seven year old girl wandering around on a school day during school hours in ragged clothes. She now attends the finest private school in the district with a new uniform, books and family medical insurance. She is taught three languages and has regular sports activities on the school’s 10 acres. We arranged for one of the teachers to specifically watch over all our children at the school for attendence, performance and health care. Our director gave her a cell phone we bought in Ghana so they could easily communicate when he was not in the village.   

   VICKI WITH CHILDREN IN JASIKAN, GHANA

 CLOTHES TO THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

 
Many people who were day laborers, hotel cleaners and others living barely above being hungry lost their jobs in the Dominican Republic due to the current world recession. A large number of Hatian immigrants have also come into the area because of the devistation in Haiti from two major hurricanes his summer and fall. In November we brought hundreds of pounds of excellent used clothing to the children’s families who attend a two room school in a slum area. They were so grateful to have clothes to wear and some good clothes to go on job interviews. We also provided 51 students with uniforms so they could attend school and gave them notebooks, pens and pencils. Since the school has trouble keeping teachers as they can only afford to pay half the salary of public schools, we are picking up the monthly salary of one teacher starting 1 December 2008 (for November’s work). This will solidify a difficult situation. Only 20% of the parents can afford to pay anything toward their children’s tuition to attend school. Other schools in the same area will not let a child attend without paying at least a week’s wages per month.  

  UNEMPLOYED WOMAN RECEIVING CLOTHES

LOCAL SUPPORT

Many homeless people need only a little help to be able to get and keep a job. Sometimes it’s new tools or hard toed shoes to qualify for a job. Sometimes it’s a new car battery or a license to keep a job they have. A Touch  of Love Foundation started a fund at our local partner Project Understanding to provide any person in their care who needs to keep or get a job the funds to do so. The funds are kept in advance so quick action can prevent a job loss or a job offer from going wasted. All of the above examples were real people who needed  tools, shoes, a car battery and a license to get or keep a job. Since Vicki and I are often out of the country when a need arises, we make sure that the solution is already in place. We hear the success stories in bunches when we deliver food or other supplies to the office. This will become even more important as the weather  turns cold in a few months.

Our support for the local low income tutoring center has had to increase 50% due to increased demand. Also, as Christmas approaches, we will respond to a direct request to fill the gaps in the presents the low income drop in center needs to cover the middle age children. Using some of the beautiful gifts we have from our fundraising ev     ents, we’ll provide scarves, jewelry and beaded boxes to these kids. Any ages not covered by gifts we have we will buy.

 HELP FOR THE ELDERLY

It is a difficult situation to care for the abandoned elderly in India. We could not leave them lying on the ground in the monsoon rain. When we tried to rent a house or building to care for them, no one would rent to us in case someone died in the home. We tried in three areas and were told it was very inauspicious to have a person die in your place, as no one would rent it after us. Instead, we moved the elderly into our children’s home and created a family. We started with five elderly people, three women and two men. We decided tohire one widow as the cook for the children. Instead of waiting to die, the elderly are surrounded by children, laughter and company. One man who has very poor eyesight is lead by a child to his chair at mealtime. It isreally beautiful to see the melding of generations, who have each had loss, into a family of children and grandparents. In June at the start of the new school year, we will increase numbers up to ten elderly, mostly widows. As we are also increasing the number of children who have lost one or more parent, our family will keep  getting larger.  

  A COUPLE IN THEIR 70'S AT OUR HOME              

NEW PROJECT OF SHEPHERD VILLAGERS 

Until March of this year, the worst poverty we had ever seen was in Africa, with distended bellies and no medical care. That changed with our trip to India this spring. Far from Ahmednagar city in a rural sheep herding village in India called Dhablepuri, we saw the equal of such poverty. The danger of poverty is that its face changes each time you see it. In Dhablepuri, the children’s skin is malformed and speckled from malnutrition. There are two wells in the whole spread out village and one goes mostly dry in the hot season, just when you need water the most. The families pick up diseases like malaria, typhoid and meningitis much more than other areas because of their contact with their sheep. We have one boy recovering from tuberculosis meningitis, which put him in a hospital at our cost for months. As his father has no use of his legs and his mother is partially crippled, this would have been a crushing blow to loss their son. He is now recovering at home and our doctor does home visits each week with new medicine and food for the family. In all we are starting in June with 55 children and two disabled families providing food and medicines and nutritional and vitamin supplements for the children. We are buying the cooking supplies, uniforms, plates, cups, school supplies and hiring our cook and village supervisor to be fully ready to start 1 June. Wayne will be at the village 17 June to make sure everything is working to the children’s’ benefit.

   FREE FOOD AND MEDICINES FOR A FAMILY