Final wrap-up of the Philippines charity effort.

It looks like we've done what we can for now with our efforts to aid survivors of the floods in the Philippines that occurred last year.  If you're new to the story, I'll sum it up here for you and you might look through this blog for detailed entries.
In December, I received word of a new subscriber to my YouTube channel--Senator Richard Gordon from the Philippines, who is also the chairman of the Philippines Red Cross.  Just a few days later, I learned of the disastrous and deadly flooding happening there.  These two events inspired me to launch an effort with the Exist Kind name on it to help survivors.  An acquaintance of mine is from the Philippines and I decided I should contact him for input and perhaps assistance with this idea.  Since he and I met while we were working for an Episcopal church, I then realized that a fundraising effort might do very well if it had the support and endorsement of the Episcopal Church.  During a New Year's visit to Phoenix, I stopped by the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona to see if the bishop might consider endorsing the project.  I was not able to meet with him personally, but my visit to the cathedral reminded me of the time years ago when I contacted another bishop to ask for a monetary donation to the organization I was volunteering with.  I realized that perhaps I should just take a direct approach and contact the bishops from all fifty United States.  I sent letters to one bishop from each state to request that they send a donation straight to the Philippines Red Cross for the flood effort and I requested that they simply mention that they were sent by Exist Kind.  I received a few responses in the subsequent couple of weeks, and that is where the project has left off.

I'm planning on bringing in a local Episcopal minister to broker the donations for a future effort.  I'd like to take this approach for any humanitarian crisis that may arise.  We don't yet have a way to keep track of donations and where they're coming from, but the idea is more to tap the bishops on the shoulder and urge them to donate to these causes.  Because of this shift towards a broader focus, I of course will not be referring to it as the Philippines flood effort but rather, something else that we generate in the future.  Whatever it gets named, it will refer to Exist Kind, the Episcopal Church, and relief efforts.  It will occur approximately once per year and only seek out modest donations from each diocese.

So that's the story of this project to date.  Thanks for reading and following along, and I'm looking forward to sharing upcoming Exist Kind projects along these lines.