Are You Wiling To Help?

            Shane Hanson, the founder of Progression Athletics International said, (2013) “PAI uses sports as a platform to reinforce the nurturing and motivating environment that all children CRAVE for a healthy childhood, and ultimately, a successful future” (page 1). Shane Hanson wants every child in the world to “CRAVE” or have the motivation to have a successful life. I agree with Hanson on this topic because every child deserves a chance to become successful in anything they out their minds to, especially if its going to have a better future for them and their future family. Since PAI’s main goal is to help at risk children around the world, they need quite a few donations from people that what to help their cause and help make these children’s lives better. This is PAI’s main issue, collecting enough funds to go out and help these at risk children across the United States and around the world.

            PAI has only been established since two thousand and twelve, so they are in desperate need to try and find any one that is willing to help their cause by making donations to their organization. They have no restrictions on who can make a donation; they will accept anything that can help the children that are at risk in America and other countries. When you visit the PAI website, they have a full break down of the types of ways you can donate to their organization. The minimum donation that can receive is ten dollars; with ten dollars it can help change the life of a child. Depending on the amount of money you would like to donate, you could possibly help up to two hundred and fifty children around the world. Now you probably wondering, do they actually use all of my money for their cause or for themselves? Shane Hanson states in his own words, (2013) “Not a single $0.01 in our budget is used for compensation because we are a one hundred percent volunteer based organization”(page 1). PAI takes all the donations from everyone and makes sure that every last penny is being used to help the at risk children. If they did not do this it would be contradicting their whole purpose.

          

            Progression Athletics International also has many different ways of donating if you don’t have the money to spare for their cause. They have a trophy recycling system, where you can take your old trophies from your sports achievements in your past childhood and send them to their address. PAI wants to make sure that the trophies are in good shape and not damaged severely because they refurbish them and will use them to give to the children when doing sport clinics. Any type of trophy that you have, PAI will accept it as long as it’s in good shape for them to give to a child. The reason for the recycled trophies being part of the donation category is so that when the PAI volunteers travel to parts of America or other countries and they get the kids active through the sport clinics, they hand out the refurbished trophies to the kids that win or accomplish something during the sport clinics. PAI states, (2013) “We work with disadvantage children who have often never received a trophy before and this is an opportunity for them to now experience the joy of participation and accomplishment! You will be apart of changing a child’s life!”(Page 1). PAI wants as many people as possible to donate the trophies that you don’t really need, so that they can give it to a child that has never received any type of trophy and put a huge smile on his or her face, knowing that they are getting rewarded for something that they accomplished.

            Now many Non-Profit Organizations have many ways to let you make some type of donations, but PAI are a little bit different from other Non-Profits because, since they are dealing with at risk children that are neglected and abused, they have a donation option of being able to Sponsor a child in need. So instead of sending your hard working money to the organization and not knowing what child is receiving your help, PAI came up with idea so you know exactly what child you are helping out. Progression Athletics International are joined up with Gentle Hands, another Non-Profit that helps at risk children as well. Together they travel over to the Philippines to help the children in that country. So PAI is involved in two different ways of helping children, helping the children in America and the children over in the Philippines as well. Shane Hanson stated, (2013) “Sponsorship is a special kind of giving that creates a relationship between you and a child desperately in need that is irreplaceable”(Para 1). Not only are you just donating money to the organization to help out these children, but also you are physically building a relationship with the child that you are sponsoring through PAI and Gentle Hands Non-Profit organization. When thinking about becoming a sponsor for a child in need you have two different options through their website.

As a sponsor you are able to sponsor a child somewhere within America or sponsor a child over seas in the Philippines. If you decide to sponsor a child in America, the child will receive various gifts from your generous donation. For only twenty-five dollars a month the child will receive an official PAI bag, School supplies, a PAI sticker, a PAI t-shirt, a Christmas gift when Christmas comes around, a few blank note cards with stamps on them so the child has the opportunity to write back and forth to the their sponsor and lastly a fifteen dollar gift card to Target so they can go and buy supplies that are not given from PAI. The second option is sponsoring a child over seas in the Philippines for twenty-five dollars a month as well. The children that you sponsor also receive gifts from your generous donation but theses gifts are solely based on school. Shane Hanson explains how in their country literacy rate is eighty five percent and that thousands of educated Filipinos get sent out to work abroad every single year. Even though that number is staggeringly high, their students face multiple hurdles, as Shane states, during their education. Their classroom sizes are between fifty and sixty students and don’t have enough desks and chairs to fit all students in, the classroom or school provides absolutely no books, school supplies or resource material to the students. At the end of the day these students are responsible for going out and buying their own supplies and books for their classes, but sometimes cant afford to buy them. So buy donating twenty-five dollars a month to the Gentle Hands Non-Profit Organization you will be helping these children receive the appropriate supplies and books for their classrooms and also providing a desk and chair for the student as well so they have a place to sit in the classroom besides the floor.     

                       

Reference Page

Hanson, S. (2013, January 1). About PAI. Retrieved November 19, 2014, from http://progressionathletics.org/about-pai/

Hanson, S. (2013, January 1). Donations. Retrieved November 25, 2014, from http://progressionathletics.org/dontate/

Hanson, S. (2013, January 1). Sponsor a Child. Retrieved December 3, 2014, from http://progressionathletics.org/dontate/sponsor-a-child/

Providing A Service To The Youth

            Charles Dickens once said (2001) “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” What the quote by Charles Dickens means to me is that if someone reaches out with an open hand to help they will never be useless in our world today. Helping others around you lifts the spirits of the people your trying to help and make them fell great about themselves later on. PAI or Progression Athletics International non-profit or organization provides this good deed to the less fortunate children around the world. They travel around to different countries and as well as America and teach the young children about the importance of education and how to develop life skills for their future. PAI help these at risk and unprivileged children and target the ages of five to eighteen. Through fundraising from people who support their cause they are able to travel to the countries with at risk children.

            PAI has a positive outlook for our younger generation. PAI follows a simple but very creative word to remember what their objective is when helping these at risk children. That word is Crave, Shane Hanson said (2011) “Create opportunities for the youth around the world to excel in health, academics and athletics, Remind at-risk children that we care about them and we want to see them succeed, Allow all children, no matter what race, gender or economic status the ability to dream of a brighter future, Volunteers can invest a child’s life while building relationships that can last a lifetime, Educate the youth on healthy lifestyles, accountability and leadership so they can teach others.”(Page 1). Shane Hanson has been traveling around the world since 2006, on his trips he started noticing that there were, in his own words,  “an overwhelming amount of children that were neglected and abused”(1), and wanted to create an organization that would help and change the lives of young children. Progression Athletics International are like doctors and nurses. They help people that need medical attention no matter what the situation is. PAI does the same sort of thing but help unprivileged children that are neglected and abused around the world.  So they help by traveling to the cities and countries with children that are in need of help. The children that PAI go and provide help to are children that usually come from homes, cities and countries where they are not very fortune to have nice things or nice clothes to put on everyday. But the main reason that progression athletics international goes to these kids is because they want to teach the children to develop life skills so when they get old enough to finally start working and provide for their family they can be successful in what they do. In order for these children to have a successful life they still need their education, without it they aren’t going to be able to go anywhere with their life. This is another service that PAI offers to these at risk children by teaching them the importance of education and how they are going to need it no matter where they go with their lives. So trying to explain to the kids how education is very important is pretty difficult when they children are too young to understand that when all they want to do is run around and play with their friends on the playground.

                                            

Even though that PAI targets all age groups of children and teenagers they don’t just target one specific age group because multiple children that are at risk are usually of all ages, so PAI notices this and have different ways to help these children because you cant teach a teenager the same way you do to a young child. PAI have different ways of teaching the children ways to understand the importance of education and developing life skills. Knowing that the younger children wont fully understand why education is important they try their best to get the point across. In doing so PAI brings sports into play so the younger kids will have fun learning as well as absorbing important information they tell them. PAI does the same with the older children such as the teenagers but the teenagers can understand the information that PAI tells them, so they don’t need to spend as much time playing sports. By playing the kids favorite sport it gets them more involved in the learning and teaching of life skills and education because they have a higher chance of taking in more information when activities are involved. By helping these children of all ages it benefits the children that are at risk a lot because they notice that the volunteers of PAI actually care about their lives and what they are going to do with their future. When taking the time out to help someone you would be surprised on the affect that it has on the individual or group. Especially if you are showing that you care about the individual and show interest in them and what they do.  

            In order for PAI to travel to all these different destinations and help the children they need money to get there. So PAI does a lot of fundraising in their local city in Simi Valley, California. Progression Athletics International has many different ways that they raise money for their organization. The simple way they receive money is just an ordinary donation of either ten dollars, which will help one child. Other options that will help multiple children are donations of twenty-five dollars, which will help three children; a donation of fifty dollars will help seven children. The donation limit goes all the way up to over one thousand dollars, which will help over two hundred fifty children at once. According to Sandy Rees from the Foundation Group, an organization that helps non-profit organizations an idea of how to receive donations, they say that you need to fist have these things in place first before your organization starts getting funded, (2012) “the right mind set, passion for the cause, strong leadership, compelling mission, donor based fundraising”.  After the organization has accomplished the first five procedures they are ready to start fundraising. Sandy Rees writes, (2012) “ tell your story to donors, ask for a gift (donation), thank the donor once donation has been received, and build a great relationship with your donors”. The Foundation Group website provides great information for any beginning non-profit organization that want to start a cause that will help out society.

          That being said, the money that PAI receive from donors, none of the money gets used as compensation because PAI are a one hundred percent volunteer based organization. For each donation someone makes they receive some little gift from the organization, whether it is a t-shirt or large sticker of their organizations logo. Another way that PAI receives funds for their trips is by signing up for a monthly membership. Every month the people that have memberships to support the PAI organization by donating twenty-five dollars every month. With the twenty-five dollars that they donate the children that are sponsoring will receive a little bag full of all sorts of stuff. In the bag it contains school supplies, a PAI t-shirt, PAI sticker, a Christmas present when Christmas comes around, blank note cards with stamps so they can write to their sponsor and communicate with them, and depending on where they are from a fifteen dollar gift card to Target if they are from America. With this money PAI is able to help hundreds of children and teach them the importance of education and life skills.          

Reference Page

Charles Dickens. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved November 11, 2014, from BrainyQuote.com Web site:

 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/charles_dickens.html

Hanson, S. (2013, January 1). Sponsor A Child. Retrieved November 5, 2014, from http://progressionathletics.org/dontate/sponsor-a-child/

Rees, S., & McRay, G. (2012, September 14). Simple steps to raising money for your Non profit Organization. Retrieved November 5, 2014, from http://www.501c3.org/blog/4-simple-steps-to-raising-all-the-money-your-nonprofit-needs/

Hanson, S. (2013, January 1). About PAI. Retrieved November 7, 2014, from http://progressionathletics.org/about-pai/

Brandon Besch

Non-Profit Narrative

October 15, 2014

ENGL 1101

                                                       

     

Helping Out the Young

“Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on them makes an impression”. This quote by Haim Ginott is stating that whatever you tell a young child they are going to remember that when they grow up. I got the chance to help some local Elementary school children in Fresno and help them learn the importance of education and life skills when I was up there to play junior hockey for the Fresno Monsters. Not knowing what to expect when we showed up to the Elementary school, we were all parked in the parking lot waiting for our sales rep guy and team manager to show up so they could escort us to the schools cafeteria where the children would be waiting for us. As our whole team waited in the parking lot we started to get anxious about what was going to happen. I remembered that my roommate Connor came to this public appearance when he played for the Fresno Monsters in the previous season, so I walked up to him and asked, “ hey dude what do we do with the kids when we walk in the cafeteria, are we supposed to like teach them how to play hockey?”

Connor responded and said, “ all we do is walk in and get into little groups with the children and tell them that education is very important to be successful in life.” In my mind I was thinking that’s not to bad since they are little kids and will just listen to what ever you have to say because they love the Fresno Monsters hockey players. Our team was seen as “famous” to most of the locals in Fresno, so whenever someone would see us in public, especially little kids, they want to know how they can become a Monster hockey player. After I talked to Connor, I heard the PA system come on in the schools grounds and the principle started talking. “ Good morning students, please stand for the pledge of allegiance”, she continued by saying the pledge with all the other students inside their classroom. When they were finished saying the pledge of allegiance, the principle made a quick announcement to the first, second, and third grades saying that they will be having a special guest coming to meet them in the cafeteria today. She didn’t state who was the special guest, which I thought was very cool cause it was keeping the kids excited on who it was going to be.

Our sales rep and team manager finally showed up into the parking lot so we could all go inside and meet the first, second, and third graders that were waiting for us in the cafeteria. As we walked in I could hear one of my teammates whisper, “ holy crap that is a lot of kids dude.” It was true there were a bunch of kids just sitting on the floor of the cafeteria waiting for us to come. The groups of children were facing the other direction facing their teachers as they were explaining what was happening, not knowing that we are literally behind them.

All the kids and their friends kept whispering to each other, “ I wonder who it could be!” I believe one kid said that he hopes it was Santa Claus, cause he had a lot of toys he wanted this year. I thought that was pretty funny, that these kids had no idea it was the Fresno Monsters. The teacher finally told the kids to turn around and meet their special guest for today. Each kid automatically had the biggest smile on their faces and started yelling out of excitement. All the children were screaming, “ OMG OMG OMG, I can’t believe it’s the Monsters!!!”

        After everyone settled down the teachers put the students into groups of three and four depending on how big their class size was. We then as a team split up into groups of two and walked over to a group of students to started talking with them and get to know them. My buddy Holty and I chose our group and sat down with them, to introduce ourselves so the kids knew what our name was. “ Hey guys, my name is Brandon and I’m number ninety-four and this is Dalton and his number is thirty-four.” You could see the kids eyes squint trying to remember who we were on the ice when they got the chance to come to our game. One kid finally remembered and shouted, “ I remember you guys, you’re the one with a black and orange stick and you’re the one with a black and red stick.” I’m not sure if the kid was just spitting out different colors but he was surprising correct. I told him the he was correct and that he had an awesome memory. We started to get into the conversation of how school is very important no matter where you end up in life. Though it was very difficult to communicate with little kids that just think of school as fun time right now, I was hoping that maybe one thing that I was telling and explaining to them, attached to their brain and would remember it when they get older. “ Remember that your education is very important guys, without it you wont make it far in life ok?” All the kids in my group responded with very monotone “I know”.

Thirty minutes went by and our sales rep guy came into the cafeteria and told everyone that they have a little surprise waiting for us outside, “ everyone get up and head to the playground, we have a little setup a little surprise for everyone”. All the kids sprung up like they all had giant spring on their butts. “ All students please get into a straight line so we can go outside in a fashionably matter “, said the teacher. Once all the students got into a perfectly formed line, we all followed our sales rep guy out onto the playground where they had setup a bunch of hockey nets and tons of hockey sticks for the students to grab and start playing with each other.

As soon as the kids saw they hockey stuff laid out in the playground they ran like a bunch of little ants in an ant farm. Sitting their listening to the students yell and have fun playing street hockey reminded me when I was in Elementary school when I used to invite all my hockey friends over on a Saturday after our practices and would all play in the street against each other. I felt like I helped these kids learn some valuable lessons on education and in life when they grow up as well. I thought about an organization outside of Simi Valley, California named PAI or Progression Athletics International, which travels to poor third world countries and teaches the local children about like skills and the importance of their education by letting them play their favorite sport. Standing their watching the students run around playing made me realize that I was sort of doing the same thing by teaching them the things I know and what I have been through so I cant tell them from my own experiences so they don’t make the same mistake as I did. And also by letting them play a little bit of street hockey, I think that it helped the kids remember that one day when the Fresno monsters came to their school cafeteria and taught them about education and life skills, they would always cherish that day when they start getting into Junior high and High school and remember that school is important.