mattwarren's blog

Esperanza is our partner on the ground in Haiti. 100% of all public donations to Skip1.org during the month of January 2010 will go directly to Esperanza to aid them in their relief efforts - to date, you've donated $1,944.45 to this initiative. But there's still more to be done. Below is an update from Esperanza's Dave Valle.

 

     Thank you all for your prayers , thoughts and support of Esperanza’s work in Haiti.  I wanted to give you a quick update on our progress on the ground in Port Au Prince.

 

All of Esperanza’s staff are safe.  The Esperanza office is located in the Northeast portion of Haiti which did not sustain much damage.  Carlos Pimentel, Esperanza’s  VP of International Operations, is in charge of our  Rapid Response Strategy.  He has served in the DR for 20 years on the Dominican Republic’s Disaster Relief and Mitigation team.  His knowledge and contacts on situations like this, are second to none on the island.

 

We have begun a herculean effort on the ground last week as Esperanza leads a coordinated effort of relief through our large network of partners and churches who, along with Esperanza, have a history of work in the communities.  This is critical in the distribution of aid.  We are known entities,  who have been serving the communities for many years.  This will prevent much of what you are seeing on the news reels…fighting for food and unorganized distribution, chaos.

 

Esperanza had 12,000 food packs in storage as part of our disaster preparedness plan for the island(tropical storms and hurricanes)that were sent immediately. There is more on the way.  We now have a warehouse on the DR border where we are moving supplies from Santo Domingo ( where prices have not risen yet) to the warehouse, then from the warehouse to P AU P for distribution to our network.  As of yesterday, Esperanza opened a new office and distribution center in Port Au Prince  in alliance with one of our partners that will serve as our base of operation.  We have 2 Doctors there also to provide medical care.

 

There are many people and organizations coming along side Esperanza to provide support.  We will need more.  

 

Pray for Esperanza’s leadership in this huge undertaking.  And Thank You for your support over the last 15 years, helping Esperanza to become an organization that has the capacity to respond in this manner and one that others look to for leadership in a time such as this!

 

Just getting started!

 

David Valle

We're always making changes to the Skip1.org website in an effort to make the overall experience better for our skippers. We never want to take your skips for granted. Any and every amount helps us feed children in need around the world. So thank you. From the bottom of our hearts. Thanks for skipping!

Some recent changes to the website:

- You can now see the most recent skippers on the main page and still visit the leaderboard.

- In an effort to help streamline the site, we decided to remove the twitter search results. If you want to see what people are saying about Skip1 on twitter, click here and bookmark the page for future reference. Recent tweets will show up on the right side of your page once you're logged in but they won't appear on the front page anymore.

- We recently created a YouTube page for Skip1.org so be on the lookout for that. We'll include a link on the main page once the page has a video or two uploaded.

- We've got an exciting campaign launching soon that's easy and will focus on feeding children and families here in the U.S. Stay tuned!

We just launched the credit card processing component to the Skip1.org website. Now you can bypass PayPal and use your credit card for easy skipping. If you want your recent skip'd item to show up on your Skip1.org account and on the Skip1.org leaderboard, you'll need to login to your Skip1 account first before giving. You can also skip something without having a Skip1.org account, it just won't get recorded to the Skip1.org leaderboard. So skip something now and let us know what you think!

We've made some awesome improvements to the website this week (and we haven't even "officially" launched).

Here's what we did:

• A "Page Not Found" glitch has been fixed with users who have spaces in their account names
• We're also calling "users" "people" now because it sounds nicer. I ain't no user. I'M A PERSON!!!
• Your tax-deductible gift receipt now works properly once you've donated to Skip1.org
• We made the 2 URL links on your profile page look better
• We've resolved some issues with the handshake between PayPal and Skip1.org with more on the way
• The recent skippers column on the main page has been tweaked
• We're moving some of the social buttons around so they're more visible
• If you don't upload a profile pic, you're gettin' one from us. Don't worry, it looks good
• Updated default profiles pics across entire site
• Added Posterous link to Social Network Badges on homepage
• Our twitter account changed from @skip_1 to @skip1
• Fixed an issue where if a Skip was hidden - it would still show up on the home page. Now they are hidden from both the user profile and homepage

Here's what we're working on next:

• Our Skip1 team will be able to email videos from their 3GS iPhones directly to the Skip1 TV page
• You'll be able to tweet out what you skipped and let others know how they can do the same
• More video content is on the way!

Pacoima, CA - September 1st, 2009 will be our first SkipDay and will serve as the official launch of our new non-profit organization which serves to bring food & water to children in need all over the world. The SkipDay will be held at the warehouse at Children's Hunger Fund in Pacoima on September 1st from noon until 1:00 PM Pacific time. Hundreds of volunteers, celebrities and leaders from both Skip1.org and Children's Hunger Fund will be on-site to help pack a shipping container full of food and supplies that will serve children in need living in Latin America and the Caribbean. The general public and volunteers are welcome to attend the event and should come to the warehouse at 11:30 AM to help with the first SkipDay. We encourage everyone to skip their lunch on 9/1/09 and help feed a child in need. Take the money you would have spent on lunch that day and donate it to Skip1.org. All public donations will go to bringing food & water to children in need. A video from the event will be available on September 2nd. Stay tuned!

Please let us know if you'll be attending the SkipDay by visiting our Facebook event page. Even if you can't be with us at CHF, let us know that you'll be skipping lunch on 9/1/09 from wherever. Help spread the word!

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