Thursday, April 23, 2020 San Diego, CA - Today is a very special day. Twenty-two years ago today, the Foundation for Women offered its first public program. Hundreds of women came to that first event. Over the years thousands of women and several special men have joined with us in support of poverty eradication and social justice. We can truly say that we have positively impacted more than 25 million people living in dire poverty - and we are just getting started. In July 2019 I brought my son Moses from Liberia to America to begin college. A few days after we arrived, we attended a celebration of life for a woman in San Diego who was a major friend to Liberia.
Within moments of arriving at the gathering, Moses asked me, "Mommy, may I please go say hello to Uncle Samuel?" Moments later Samuel Mayson was standing next to me for the first time in seven years, though his family has been a beyond dear part of my life since 2006. We made arrangements to have a conversation the following day before he flew home to Baltimore - and we have not stopped speaking since that first conversation. On December 3, 2019 we were married in front of my home in Liberia next to the ocean surrounded by treasured family and friends. A God-thing as Moses says. My life has changed completely. And now the world has changed completely.
In this extraordinary time, Samuel suggested to me that we find a way to get food to people in Liberia who have none. I had been trying to find a way to honor our 22nd FFW Birthday and help people in dire need at the same time. Samuel's suggestion was it! For a donation of $25, we will give a big bag of rice and enough charcoal to cook it to feed a family of 5 for two months. If many of us would sponsor one family - or two or ten or more - collectively we can have a vitally important impact on the realities of many families who are in dire need right now, just as FFW has done since its inception 22 years ago.
My namesake Deborah, sister Florence, and family are typical of families all over the country of Liberia - no electricity, no running water, no way to store food safely, no money for major supplies - so they must go out to a local market regularly to get small food, despite the lockdown which forbids people to be out of their homes after 3PM daily. As Samuel knows from being born and raised in Liberia, and I know after spending the last 13 ½ years there, life in Liberia is hard. Rampant poverty. Senseless civil war. Poor healthcare. Ebola. And now Covid 19.
Will you please join with Samuel and me in helping now? Please help us by donating $25 to sponsor one family or sponsor more families if you can. Click on the Donate option on our website or call Cory at 858.483.0400. The need is urgent. FFW knows how to help immediately and directly. As we did during the Ebola epidemic, we can save lives now.
With love and gratitude for all of your support for the last 22 years - a God-thing indeed!
With love and gratitude for all of your support for the last 22 years - a God-thing indeed!
Deborah Lindholm
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