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/