“What is your greatest need?”
“What can I bring that would be the biggest blessing?”
These are questions asked by the many teams, missionaries and interns that come to Ethiopia with Blessing the Children each year. Our response is always the same – BRING VITAMINS!
While the children are provided with food support each month, a healthy breakfast at the BCI Academy and a full serving of milk from the Milk Program, they are still not getting all the vitamins and minerals they need through their meals. Blessing the Children strives to fulfill each child’s nutritional needs so the lack of nutrition in the children’s food is made up through daily multi-vitamins. Unfortunately, the only children’s vitamins available in Ethiopia are in liquid form and judging by the high cost – you’d think they were made of gold! So the best option we have found to provide the children with their daily multi-vitamin, is to bring the vitamins in from the U.S. and Canada.
With 146 children currently in the BCI Sponsorship Program, that is approximately 4,380 vitamins a month and a whopping 53,290 vitamins a year! With the cost of vitamins to be around $6/bottle for 100 vitamins, that averages around $3,200/year that we spend on vitamins for the children – which is well worth the investment, but…isn’t there a better (and cheaper!) way?
A recent team member, Mark from Illinois, saw this great need and the importance of vitamins for the children and took it upon himself to do some research and see how he could help. Mark contacted a few people and was able to find a vitamin supplier who would provide BCI with 100-count children’s multi-vitamins with iron, for only $1.75/bottle. That is less than 1/3 of the cost!
Mark is also able to arrange to have the vitamins packaged and shipped via air freight to Ethiopia and he has generously offered to cover the cost of shipping! All we need to do is provide the funds for the vitamins themselves, which are already at a discounted rate. What an amazing opportunity!
Our goal is to send just over a one year supply of children’s multi-vitamins to Ethiopia. The amount needed to do this is $1,008 for 576 bottles (24 cases) at $1.75/bottle.
Would you consider helping us in this amazing opportunity to provide the children with a years supply of multi-vitamins? We can’t do it without you! To make a donation, please visit our donate page ( http://www.blessingthechildren.org/Donate/index.html ) or email our Program Director, Melissa, at Melissa@BlessingtheChildren.org.
Every little bit brings us closer to our goal of strong, healthy children!
Blessing the Children International 