The Mocha Club Blog

When Tammy heard about mocha club, she quickly started a team for her family, giving up $7 a month. She sent invitation emails to everyone she could think of, sharing her story of answering the call to give to our Orphan Care projects, despite hard financial times for their family. (Read updates on those projects here!)

But it didn’t stop there. Tammy wanted to do more.
She bought “I need Africa more than Africa needs me” tshirts for her entire family to wear to church. She talked with her pastor and shared her vision of getting the whole church involved, and organized a donation to her project from the church. She’s also getting the Life Group she and her husband attend excited about running a campaign.

And, she got her kids involved. Ten-year-old Delaney decided to give her money to help the orphans, and created a drawing with the phrase “We are all the same”. We were able to take the drawing over with our Mocha Club Cape Town trip (it is pictured above with some orphans in Khayelitcha, South Africa!) Fourteen-year-old Presley spreads the message of Mocha Club to her classmates and draws posters, getting her friends excited about helping!

How can you get your family involved?
You decide. You make the difference.

Emily’s youth group was hosting a DiscipleNow weekend at her church, and wanted to involve a missions emphasis for the event. She ran a Make Change campaign as the special offering all weekend, using oversized “coffee cups” made from flower planters to collect the money. She showed Mocha Club videos to promote the idea, and bought Mocha Club “I need Africa more than Africa needs me” tshirts to give away.

Emily picked our Sudan Regrowth project area, with an emphasis towards the New Life Orphanage in Nyamlel, Sudan.

The weekend raised almost $700 for the orphanage!!
After the event, when asked how she felt the campaign went, Emily said “It made the church realize the need in Africa, and I was so encouraged by the response from our church!”

Mocha Club member Missy Wood traveled on one of our trips last summer to Ethiopia. While she was there, Missy was able to take some amazing photographs that inspired her and her husband, Asher, to hold an art show in Nashville this spring. The Woods displayed their art at a downtown studio loft, and the one-night event featured wine and Ethiopian food, and a video Missy created explaining her trip and her vision to continue to raise money and support the projects she saw.

Donations at the door plus proceeds from the art sales went to our Education project in Ambo, Ethiopia to support street kids and our Women at Risk project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to support mothers.

What are ways you could use your gifts to raise money in your town? Email makechange [at] mochaclub [dot] org with your ideas!!

In Africa, a little goes a long way, and it’s so easy to help. Just ask Jessica, who recently lead her church in a make change campaign. They printed out our “Spare Change to Make Change” labels, placed them on cups, and passed them out to the church to make collections. Throw in some information about where that money is going on a powerpoint, and 4 weeks later — $1000 was raised!

The money Jessica’s church raised will go to fund our various education projects around Africa.

One of our current projects is the elementary school we’re building in Kibera, Kenya. We also have a primary school in progress at the Village of Hope in Gulu, Uganda.

Thanks to campaigns like Jessica’s, we are able to fund these projects and give an education to the future leaders of these communities.

STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition is a group of students at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN that want to make change. Their mission is to promote awareness on the issue of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan and to influence national policy regarding the issue. They partnered with the Mocha Club at the end of the fall semester to run a Make Change campaign. STAND called it “Rock for Darfur” and raised over $1000 for Sudan Regrowth projects! They plan to hold another event, “Walk for Darfur”, in the spring.