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Our 2008 Bicycle Program
With your help, we will provide 20,000 underprivileged children with a new chance in life.
We will give them brand-new bicycles so they have a new way to reach Mentors who can become their "training wheels" in life, guiding the children in positive directions. All the way out of poverty.
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1. A Wonderful Charity
Thousands of contributors and volunteers are coming together to do for others, the underprivileged children in the 8-county Greater Houston Area.
Through our Bicycle Program, we're giving children who live onfoot brand-new bicycles. Their bicycles represent the two wheels that can help them ride all the way out of poverty. How?
Bicycles take children to mentors such as Scout Leaders, Coaches, Community Center Guidance Counselors and others. These mentors serve as the "training wheels" in a child's life; they build character, provide encouragement and help children build crucial life skills.
Proven Results
In Hempstead, Texas, before we arrived, the entire Little League Football consisted of just four teams, each barely staffed with enough boys to play football. Then, after we gave 1,400 new bicycles to virtually every child in the entire town the Little League grew -- to NINE teams!
Imagine: all those new boys getting daily mentoring by caring coaches who urge them to go to school and keep up their grades and who build their character!
Also in Hempstead, the after-school program, which emphasizes teacher-student mentoring, grew from just 10 students to 200 students!
And, it paid off. From teetering on the brink of "sudden death" because of two years of failing the TAKS tests, the School District made a remarkable turnaround and Passed the tests! All because the bikes gave children a way to and from mentoring classes.
And, as the television commercials say: There's more. Parent-teacher conferences increased, as parents rode their children's bicycles to schools for the first time. Kids, who live in racially isolated areas of the city, started playing together across racial boundaries, a big step toward heading off gang problems.
That's all just in Hempstead, Texas, where just 2 percent of our bikes have been given. Throughout the eight-county Greater Houston Area we have many similar success stories.
It's a wonderful charity. Be a part of it ... This Year!
Another View: Stranded, with no way out
Have you ever run out of gasoline?
With the tank dry, can you imagine reaching for your wallet and your cell phone, only to find they’re not there?
Worse still, what if you're on empty in the wrong part of town?
It's a sinking feeling: stranded, onfoot, in a dangerous place, with no money and no way out.
You’ve just glimpsed the life of a child living in poverty.
Poor children spend their lifetimes stranded on foot in dangerous places, with no way out.
We believe a bicycle is the vehicle which can take a child out of poverty and into another way of life. We believe bikes help build hope, the gasoline to drive a child to seek the right way out.
At Elves & More, we mobilize entire neighborhoods of children to support one another in the quest to escape poverty.
Join us in helping poverty’s children find their way out. For just $40, you can give one child a bike.
Be a part of it . . . This Year!
David L. Moore
Founder and President
David@ElvesAndMore.org
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Building Minds
Building Bodies
Building Spirits |
2. With a Serious Purpose
Sure, we all love to see the smiles on children's faces when they receive new bicycles. But that's not why we're involved.
We're here because underprivileged kids are in deep trouble.
As many as 4 out of 5 kids in many poor neighborhoods are not graduating high school. Joblessness and drug addiction are out of control.
In far too many of these neighborhoods, as many as 76 percent of the boys are going to jail or prison before they turn 35! (see Part 3 in next column)
These children are trapped, with no way out.
Until now.
"No one can do everything, but we can all do something!"
That's why Elves & More, a (501c3) children's charity, was founded just four years ago: "to help children get out of poverty." With your help, we will.
Won't you join with us in making a difference?
Be a part of it ... This Year!
David L. Moore
Founder David@ElvesAndMore.org
Read more
If Santa doesn’t come . . .
. . . does it mean that I’m bad?
At a fundraising event the other day, a supporter asked me what underprivileged children think when Santa doesn’t come. Surprisingly, it was something that I'd never thought about, until then.
As children, we’re told by our parents and teachers that Santa only visits the homes of “good” children. So, by extension, if he doesn’t come to “our” house, it must mean “I’m bad.”
Maybe that’s why one of the children we served last year wrote us and said “Well, Santa DID come to the Ghetto this year.”
How do we explain Santa’s absence to the 330,000 poor children in Greater Houston?
Fortunately for the 25,000 children we serve this year, it’s a question that won’t come up.
Another reason to “Be a part of it . . . This Year!”
David L. Moore
Founder
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3. And Sound Economics (Simple Math)
Today, there are 2.2 million people in our nation's jails and prisons. Most are uneducated, poor, young brown-skinned males.
The problem is growing worse. The population behind bars has grown six-fold in just 30 years, 15 times faster than the population as a whole.
And, it is very costly to society, $30,000 to run the prisons and $10,000 in lost wages even at minimum wage.
Consider this: For the same $40,000 society spends to keep one person in prison for one year, we can buy and deliver 1,000 new bikes to underprivileged children.
If just 1 out of 1,000 of our children uses his or her bike to get to a Mentor who guides his life in the right direction, and that child avoids just a single year of prsion, then our program makes sound economic sense. And, the other 999 children get the best gift ever for once in their impoverished life.
Look left to the Hempstead example and you will see that we're helping far more than 1 out of 1,000, not for a year, but for a lifetime and beyond.
It's a very sound investment.
Be a part of it . . . This Year!
David L. Moore
Founder
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