Friends,

This year, we want to share with you a cause that we feel strongly about and that touches on some of our core values: Self-Help International’s Teen Girls Club. 

Agriculture, rural communities and supporting young women are very important to us.  Self-Help International is an Iowa-based organization that works with rural communities in Nicaragua, Central America and Ghana, West Africa to alleviate hunger and poverty by improving agriculture, empowering women and girls, promoting good nutrition, and supplying clean water. Their work in these countries provides crucial support to so many rural families, many of whom rely on agriculture to feed and provide for their children.

In addition to this focus on rural farming communities, Self-Help touches on another element that hits close to home: empowering young girls. We look at our own daughters and we can see how important it is to support them to reach their potential and pursue their dreams, and we want to support opportunities for other girls like Libby and Audrey. Self-Help’s Teen Girls Club works with the daughters of rural families in Ghana to provide after school tutoring, teach life skills lessons, build self-esteem, and ultimately help them achieve their life goals. The goal is to open up opportunities to these young women and help them break the cycle of poverty.

This is why we have chosen to support Self-Help International this year. Their work focuses on so many things we think are important: improving agriculture, empowering girls, and making sure communities everywhere have access to nutritious food. If you want to learn more about Self-Help, you can go to www.selfhelpinternational.org, or you can view their 2019 Impact Report here: https://www.selfhelpinternational.org/2020/08/12/the-2019-impact-report/. 

Please join us as we commit to Self-Help between now and the end of the year. We have started it off with a $500 donation and will match the first $1,000 of gifts made to the organization. If you want just a small glimpse of the impact you can make on the lives of young girls, take a look at the video above about Self-Help’s work to empower women and girls in Ghana (the Teen Girls Club portion starts at 5:05). 

Thank you for your consideration, and I hope you have a Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

Best wishes,

Mick and Janet Messman