We've had another busy week here in Haiti as we gear up for the Christmas and New Year Holidays, as well as all that comes with the end of the year running an organization. I've been busy meeting with our lawyer, visiting various government entities, and preparing to have a hundred or so contracts signed by year-end! Love and Len have been busy this past week with Operations - namely building and renovation projects both inside and around Brit's Home! We're particularly excited about the renovation project happening in what was first Gama and his family's apartment, and then became mine.
As we grow and evolve as family first and as an organization second, we have to keep up with the needs of our growing children, too! The challenges we face in raising 66 children are in no way limited, and so it seems that we adjust and adapt policy and rules often, making every effort to keep ahead of the curve so to speak in an effort to bring the best care and education we can for our children. One of our biggest challenges since our earliest days is maintaining a balance in terms of allowing our Britsionarys and Child Sponsors to bring or send gifts to Haiti, and figuring out how to disperse the overwhelming amounts of gifts we have received at our Operations Center.
In our earliest days, this wasn't problematic, as we had few sponsors and fewer Britsionarys. Over the course of the past almost 4 years, our Britsionary Family has grown to include upwards of 700 people, and our sponsor and donor base has expanded, too. Our struggle was this: How can we teach our children things like responsibility for personal items - how to take care of your own belongings while a flood of those belongings just kept coming and coming? When I first realized that our children were careless with things like toys, books, bikes, etc., I recognized that in part this was because when and if something invariably broke, another group of Britsionarys would likely be soon behind the last, and would be coming with gifts in hand. Thus, the idea for a store of sorts was born, and today we're making that happen.
Once this space is finalized, it will house both our Program's office space, specific to the leadership staff who works with the children directly, as well as our own store/market of sorts. We've asked one of our ovenight caregivers, Madame Mirtha, to head up this initiative, as Mirtha runs her own market here in Grand Goave. We think she will be a great choice to teach our children how to run a
small business, and how to manage money! We plan to build in marketing strategies, too, and feature items in the store that have been donated to BLB.
What's even more beneficial is that we'll be building the "money" side of this in to our Positive Reinforcement Program, Catch You Being Good, where children will earn tickets and points after accumulating a certain number of "stars" for times when a caregiver or even another child notices someone going above and beyond what is expected of them. We also plan to work in a corresponding allowance program for those children who are tasked with regular chores around the house, so that they can learn about how to manage money, budgeting, and more. We're very excited!!!
Madame Love spent some extra special time with a group of our girls this weekend, hosting a slumber party of sorts on Friday and then last night, traveling to Port au Prince to bring the girls to a Holiday ballet recital at the school of one of her friends. Our girls were so excited to go, and have not stopped talking about it since they got back! Some of them even think they are ballerinas now, too! We'll have to work on that a bit, but what a special treat for those girls who worked so hard and deserved this new first!
With everything going on, we know it's going to be a busy few weeks! We look forward to our Christmas Britsionary Group arriving later this month to help with all of the activities that will be going on! Be sure to stay tuned to our social media pages for all of the updates!
As always, thank you for helping us help the children of Haiti at Be Like Brit!!!
As we grow and evolve as family first and as an organization second, we have to keep up with the needs of our growing children, too! The challenges we face in raising 66 children are in no way limited, and so it seems that we adjust and adapt policy and rules often, making every effort to keep ahead of the curve so to speak in an effort to bring the best care and education we can for our children. One of our biggest challenges since our earliest days is maintaining a balance in terms of allowing our Britsionarys and Child Sponsors to bring or send gifts to Haiti, and figuring out how to disperse the overwhelming amounts of gifts we have received at our Operations Center.
In our earliest days, this wasn't problematic, as we had few sponsors and fewer Britsionarys. Over the course of the past almost 4 years, our Britsionary Family has grown to include upwards of 700 people, and our sponsor and donor base has expanded, too. Our struggle was this: How can we teach our children things like responsibility for personal items - how to take care of your own belongings while a flood of those belongings just kept coming and coming? When I first realized that our children were careless with things like toys, books, bikes, etc., I recognized that in part this was because when and if something invariably broke, another group of Britsionarys would likely be soon behind the last, and would be coming with gifts in hand. Thus, the idea for a store of sorts was born, and today we're making that happen.
Once this space is finalized, it will house both our Program's office space, specific to the leadership staff who works with the children directly, as well as our own store/market of sorts. We've asked one of our ovenight caregivers, Madame Mirtha, to head up this initiative, as Mirtha runs her own market here in Grand Goave. We think she will be a great choice to teach our children how to run a
small business, and how to manage money! We plan to build in marketing strategies, too, and feature items in the store that have been donated to BLB.
What's even more beneficial is that we'll be building the "money" side of this in to our Positive Reinforcement Program, Catch You Being Good, where children will earn tickets and points after accumulating a certain number of "stars" for times when a caregiver or even another child notices someone going above and beyond what is expected of them. We also plan to work in a corresponding allowance program for those children who are tasked with regular chores around the house, so that they can learn about how to manage money, budgeting, and more. We're very excited!!!
Madame Love spent some extra special time with a group of our girls this weekend, hosting a slumber party of sorts on Friday and then last night, traveling to Port au Prince to bring the girls to a Holiday ballet recital at the school of one of her friends. Our girls were so excited to go, and have not stopped talking about it since they got back! Some of them even think they are ballerinas now, too! We'll have to work on that a bit, but what a special treat for those girls who worked so hard and deserved this new first!
With everything going on, we know it's going to be a busy few weeks! We look forward to our Christmas Britsionary Group arriving later this month to help with all of the activities that will be going on! Be sure to stay tuned to our social media pages for all of the updates!
As always, thank you for helping us help the children of Haiti at Be Like Brit!!!
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