The Current State

Hello all my faithful readers & new friends,

I just wanted to share with all of you the journey that I have been on since returning from Kenya. It has been a busy, but exciting time and I cannot wait for you all to read this post. This has only happened because God has blessed me abundantly through your support.

The opportunity has finally come for me to launch The Overflow Foundation. If you read back to my early posts, I explained that a few years ago I was given control over an official 501c3 non-profit organization. Being in high school, I was not sure how this would play into my future, my current life, and what I would even do with it. I did not see myself as a business major walking around in a pant suit ordering people around (at the time thats what I thought people who owned their own business would do). So what was I going to do with a non-profit?

Before returning to Kenya, I established The Overflow Foundation officially and launched it publicly with family and friends in early May, which you can read all about on the site: www.theoverflowfoundation.org. The Overflow Foundation seeks to refresh hope in children living in developing countries through education and awareness.

The reason behind this mission is because I believe the best way to help those living in poverty anywhere in the world is to have them empower themselves. If they begin to rely on others for help, then they will always be stuck in the same situation. The only lesson they have learned is to beg to rich people and they will help you get what they want. If you teach children and adults, that they themselves have the ability to change their situation, then you change their lives and future generations lives for the better. Many times, the only way to make a lasting evident change in their living conditions is through education. Education plays a major role in getting children out of the slums. Education provides a future and stable job. A job that pays more than any work in the slums will get you. From there, children can establish a life outside of poverty. A life where food, clean water, shelter, and education is earned through hard work. Many times these children will invite their parents to come live with them. The downfall to this is that the government does not provide adequate education in these countries. The only way for children to be able to learn essential knowledge for college acceptance is to attend a private school. These school are very expensive. That leaves organizations such as Missions of Hope the only choice for their education. The Overflow partners with these organizations to help them provide education through financial support.

Missions of Hope and organizations such as these provide sponsorship education, where someone can donate the money for their education so that the children are able to get into college. Along with education, these children receive clothing, food, medical attention, Jesus, and love. Another great thing is that children with special needs are not overlooked. They are accepted and see as a human of worth, which is uncommon in these areas. Those with disabilities are normally looked down upon because they cannot contribute to the family. Society outcasts them. Thankfully, Missions of Hope takes these children and provides the tools to rehabilitate them so they can learn and function in society. It's such an amazing organization and I am thankful The Overflow can be apart of helping them spread love through Kenya.

How do we get the funding you may ask? Great question. The Overflow Foundation currently raises funds through repurposed goods in an online store. We sell headbands, shorts, and stickers. We hope to have t-shirts in our store soon. We also receive financial contributions online through Paypal. These are all tax deductible donations and all proceeds go directly to furthering The Overflows mission. Check all of these things out at our site www.theoverflowfoundation.org. We recently have launched this site through a company called Strikingly.

This company has helped launch our mission to the next level. Having an internet base is a huge advantage making it easy for customers to donate, learn information, and purchase goods through our strikingly site. They have been able to let us easily self-create our site that looks great on mobile devices and computers. Also strikingly has great customer service and easy to use editing tools to make the site true to our mission. Check them out if you are considering launching a website and soon they will have blog features running too! We are so thankful to have the site up and we are thankful to all the great people at www.strikingly.com.

Looking for ways to help The Overflow Foundation? Like and share our posts on facebook at The Overflow foundation, follow us on instagram at theoverflowfoundation.

Looking for more tangible ways? We are currently seeking designers of handmade goods from soap, to knitting, to cards, we'd love to sell your goods in our store. If you feel led, you can make a financial donation on our site.

I am so thankful for the constant support and love. I am so blessed to be able to found The Overflow and look forward to seeing how we progress. We are currently in contact with organizations in Asia to support and come along side. For now, check our site and the blog for updates! If you have any direct questions, you may contact us on the site through the Drop us a line section or email theoverflownfp@gmail.com. Thank you all.

Much love and appreciation to you all,

xoxo,

Maddie