Services in Honduras
If you would like to visit Honduras and provide volunteer services directly alongside staff at Caminando Con Niños, email us at info@walkingwithchildren.org for information about current needs.
Fundraising
Fundraising is vital to nonprofit organizations, and one of the key ways our supporters can help us! Below are some ideas to draw from when organizing a fundraiser to help Walking With Children.
WHAT INDIVIDUALS CAN DO
1. Hold aYard Sale. Ask friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. to donate items with portion of proceeds benefiting WWC. Chances are they will be happy to rid themselves of a few items that are just causing clutter. Make it a festive atmosphere with balloons and music (CDs or radio).This is a win/win event – you get rid of your clutter and raise money for your favorite cause. Have signs at the sale informing people about the cause. Pre-print ”thank you” receipts to give to buyers after they make their purchase, thanking them for helping WWC and directing them to our website or facebook page for more information.
2. Make Believe Tea Party. Send a tea bag (maybe South American Yerba Mate) in an envelope along with an invitation explaining that the guest is invited to a “make-believe tea party” on a certain day (World AIDs Day, for example) at a certain time (high noon). Explain on that date and time, you will all enjoy a cup of tea (using the tea bag provided) in support of your cause. Remind them that they can take part in this tea party while still enjoying the comforts of their own home! Ask each “guest” for a donation in return for “attending” this tea party. Provide a SASE for their convenience. The tea bag is theirs to keep whether they make a donation or not, but the hope is that your efforts will encourage them to send you a donation. Be sure to send a “thank-you” to those who make a donation.
3. Sell Honduran Coffee. Provide people with a taste of Honduras while sharing information about WWC at the same time.There are a variety of Honduran coffee companies like http://www.hondurascoffeecompany.com where you can buy bags of coffee, sell to neighbors, friends, co-workers and families. Let them know part of the proceeds will go to WWC and provide them with a brochure and donation form to make future contributions — or order more coffee form you.This is also a great idea for church and social groups.
4. Honduran Plant Sale.Talk to local nurseries about donating portion of profits during spring and/or peak weekends on plants native to Honduras with the message of “Help the Children of Honduras Bloom.” Plants like Heliconia, Orange Gyro, tree ferns and bromeliads.
5. Perform a free service for donations. Rake leaves, shovel snow, take care of a pet. When offering your service, ask the person who benefited from your actions for a donation toward your worthy cause.
6. Craft Sale. Make all the crafts yourself and sell them. you can also ask WWC about purchasing Honduran goods and hosting an evening where people can purchase authentic pieces while sharing knowledge about their current lifestyles.
WHAT 2-4 PEOPLE CAN DO
7. Make corsages for a special event such as Mother’s Day, Homecoming, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc as a fundraising project. Take orders ahead of time and collect the payment in advance. Be sure to collect details regarding the recipient’s name and delivery address. Have small note cards available for purchasers to complete to accompany the corsages. A few samples for display at your table or booth will help promote sales. Advance orders and collections will allow you to purchase only what you need to make the number of corsages ordered and reduce the need for advance funds. On the Saturday before Mother’s Day (or the night before or morning of your chosen event) deliver the corsages with accompanying cards.
8. Host a Dinner. The best events often capitalize on some cultural heritage (i.e.Texas chili, Southern fish fry, Louisiana crawfish boil). We suggest getting together ideally Honduran/Central American traditional fare or favorite south of the border recipes for a fun fiesta. Encourage people to invite friends and families. It often helps to combine a fundraising meal with some other activity such as a dance, choir concert, lecture series, or a fundraising auction.
• Providing a meal may make it easier for families to attend a week night church service or special school assembly. Serve a pancake breakfast after an early church service; coffee and dessert after a concert or boxed lunches during a conference.
• Once established, you can increase profits with both plate service and take home portions or cartons.
• Send flyers to cultural studies professors at the local university and high schools who may offer extra credit to students for attending the event.
• If you want to attract the general public, make sure you appoint a publicity chairman to get out flyers and posters in neighborhood stores. Submit your event for inclusion in the community calendar in your local newspaper and on the radio. If you’ve chosen a unique menu, you might even get a ‘human interest’ article.
• Enlist an army of volunteers to help with prep, decorating, clean up and serving.
• You’ll have to decide how to serve your fundraising meal. Table service is more formal and allows for closer time scheduling, since everyone is served at once (or as closely as possible) but it takes more workers to serve everyone. A buffet is less formal, but often your best choice logistically. Cafeteria style works fine for more informal events.
• You’ll need to sell tickets ahead of time for more formal and catered events, at the door for others. The price should be set to cover your costs and provide a profit or its not much of a fundraiser.
• Create a special WWC table near the door with information. For a sit down affair, have information at the table.
• For a very nice evening of a group of less than 30, include a guest speaker either from WWC or a univeristy professor who has in-depth knowledge on Honduras today and photos they can share.
• Traditional Honduran Recipes include Aroz De Leche – Rice With Milk Pudding, Ayote en miel, conch soup, plaintain pancakes, coconut bread, quesadillas, tamales, montucas, Pastel de Tres Leches (Three Milk Cake), Salpicon, Macheteadas, Pupusas de Frijoles,Tapado de Pescado Seco, Pastelitos de Carne.
• Make a mini-booklet of the recipes served that evening as a favor or a $3-5 purchase.
9. Live in or near sister city to Honduras? Make a presentation to the local organization interested in their sister city relations — New Orleans and Gainesville.
10. Flan cook off.This could be a big production or simple depending on your community and desires. One idea is to have local restaurants provide flan for taste-testing. Or have members of your organization. Invite the public, have it part of a local street festival.
11. Salsa cook off. Similar to above.
12. Live in or near a college town? Connect with international studies professors see if they would be willing to share knowledge of Honduran culture with your group. Perhaps they can connect you to other groups and voila– you can plan a large Honduran festival or Central American fair that can benefit WWC along with other groups. Sell admission tickets to raise funds for your cause.
13. Sell Christmas ornaments during the Christmas season.
WHAT A GROUP CAN DO
14. Night of Honduran Art. Have local artists donate some of their works, which will be displayed and then sold to the public.
15. Hold a “Chinese Auction” night. A Chinese Auction is an event at which you bid for items with small tickets that have a predetermined dollar value.The tickets typically come 25 per card and are perforated for easy separation.The reason for a Chinese auction need not be a special occasion; it could simply be a good cause or the spark for a good time.The items to be auctioned can be anything that your imagination allows.You could even incorporate this type of auctioning for a Honduran art evening or just having Honduran goods up for auction.
• Bidders win by either 1) placing the highest dollar value of tickets into a container placed next to the bid item than anyone else (a “silent auction”), or 2) increasing their odds of being chosen from a hat by placing a higher number of tickets into a container than anyone else, thereby in- creasing the likelihood that their ticket would be drawn from that container at the end of the auc- tion.
The basic steps to run a Fundraising Chinese Auction are as follows:
a. Decide on and acquire the items you want to auction off.This is actually the fun part and will determine how much money you can expect to bring in from your fundraising event. A $50.00 dinner donated by a local restaurant, for example, could bring in $100s. A painting by the restaurant’s owner – all things being equal – may not. The good news is that the sky’s the limit. In return for their donations, you could place the names and logos of businesses as sponsors on the auction cards themselves. Alternatively, a group of friends, an association or a church group may wish to hold an auction consisting of items purchased from their travels around the world. Here, the value of the “treasures” to be bid on is a total judgment call, but often turns into humorous bidding wars. Bid items could also be services such as a shoveled driveway, a cut lawn or an invitation to a dinner party.
b. Decide on the location of the auction. Anywhere. Your house, my house, the clubhouse, the church basement, the beach, the parking lot. Wherever. If you decide to offer refreshments – and this is certainly not necessary – sell them yourself on site as another source of reve- nue.
c. Decide on how to get potential bidders to the auction. This, too, can be fun. If the fundraising auction is being held by a group or association of some sort, invite that group. And mention that they can bring friends and family. And if they tell two people and those two people tell two people…
d. Setup In addition to securing fundraising bid items, auction cards should be obtained and someone must be assigned the job of collecting money from card purchasers and collecting the tear-off name and address stub from their respective auction cards. That’s it!
16. Clean up after sporting events. Sometimes clubs and organizations can earn fundraising money by cleaning up sporting arenas like McKale center after events. McKale must be cleaned immediately following the basketball games therefore, the time commitment and the manpower is quite high. In the past such programs have been attempted, but due to lack of commitment they were canceled.
17. Setting up a fundraising sports tournament such as a soccer tourney (the big sport in Honduras) can be great fun and good way to raise money. Invite other clubs or organizations or even ask local companies to participate and charge a entrance fee. Your group can make money and have a great time playing a sport.
18. Central American Dance/Music Night. Discover the local talent in your community. There may be Latino bands, dance groups, etc who could provide a fun evening and educate people on Central American culture. Allow the groups to sell their merchandise and hopefully they will donate their time for free. Charge an admission price and also have a table of drinks and food for sale.
19. Holiday Boutique and Bake Sale
20. An evening in Honduras. Plan a special meal of Honduran food, read the poetry of Rafael Heliodoro Valles or Clementina Suarez. Display the art of Carlos Garay and Jose Antonio Velazquez. share Honduran cigars. Have a guest speaker or teacher come in to share their knowledge as well as a WWC representative to talk about the efforts we can all make to help this beautiful country.
