October 2018 – Blessman International by the Numbers
Friends of Blessman International often ask me how many lives are being touched by their support. Although only God knows the exact number, I will do my best to tell you about the lives that I see being impacted through the support that many of you are sending our way.
Employment:
You are helping us employ five staff members in Iowa and 34 people in South Africa. The staff in South Africa is significantly impacted because the unemployment rate nationwide is about 27%. In most of the rural villages that we are working in, however, it runs closer to 75%. Most of them have been with us for more than four years. The average family size in South Africa is four per household, yet they are often helping out extended family.
Teams:
Over 600 North Americans have made the journey to South Africa to serve with us, and each and every one of them has been significantly impacted in a positive way. They often return home with a desire to continue serving in one way or another.
Outreaches:
Those 600 plus people have impacted the children and adults in South Africa the most. With these outreaches, our team members make life-long memories with the individuals they serve.
Optical Outreaches:
We began serving in South Africa in 2004 with optical outreaches. To date, we have given free eye tests and eyeglasses to over 30,000 children and adults. Now that we offer several different outreach experiences, the number served per year is less than in the beginning, but we still serve 1500 to 2000 each year. Giving sight to a child in school has a significant impact on the child’s life and even impacts the entire family of each of these children. They cannot learn effectively if they cannot see well.
Nutritional Outreaches:
Blessman International is currently providing high quality nutrition to approximately 12,500 children multiple meals each week. Team members are particularly excited to be able to help with this, as many of them have helped package the rice packets with Meals from the Heartland in Iowa. When they get the opportunity to help cook and serve these meals, it completes the loop of meals packaged in Iowa and eaten in South Africa. It brings joy to everyone’s heart.
Shoe Outreaches:
Over the last seven years we have given away several thousand pairs of shoes and I have honestly lost count of the number of children blessed by this program. We are currently giving shoes to approximately 2000 children each year in partnership with Soles for Souls, Samaritan’s Feet, and Tom’s Shoes. We will use shoes from any ministry that will provide shoes for our children. Our team members wash the feet of each child getting a new pair of shoes and also pray with them.
Days for Girls:
Our donors are helping us provide feminine hygiene kits to impoverished young ladies. We have distributed a total of 7000 kits over the past three years. Beginning this year that number has grown to distributing 3000 kits each year with the help of our team members.
Churches and Spiritual Impact:
Lighthouse Church:
This church has been operating for the past 10 years and is healthy and mature. Approximately 200 people attend this church each week and this represents somewhere around 80 households.
Mountain View Church:
This church is in a rural area and has approximately 75 members attend each week representing about 40 households.
Sports Programs:
Our donors have helped our churches establish three soccer teams and two netball teams. These teams are impacting well over 100 children each week.
School Assemblies:
As a result of all of the great community outreaches Blessman International is doing in South Africa, four large high schools have opened their doors to our pastors to preach in the school assemblies each week. We are currently able to minister to over 4000 children each and every week that school is in session.
Del Cramer Child Development Center:
This is our pilot center where Lighthouse Church is located. There are 115 children registered to eat at this center each school day. Many of these children have been attending this program since it opened 10 years ago. Our computer learning center is housed here, and it is also where we are starting our new literacy program. Our agriculture programs also started here.
Agriculture Programs:
To help our feeding program be sustainable long term, our donors helped us to purchase a 150-acre farm where we are raising vegetables, poultry, and a few game animals. This program impacts the lives of all of the people in our nutritional program, so we will not count them again here. We are just now starting a new program called Teach a Child to Fish that will impact the lives of children in 10 rural schools as we teach them the love of agriculture and how to farm with excellence using their school gardens. This program will impact the lives of 3000 to 5000 children and also their families.
Water Project:
With the assistance of Hy-Vee and Rotary we were able to drill 13 wells in rural impoverished schools impacting the lives of 6500 children and their families. Going forward we have a pledge from Hy-Vee to help us drill 10 wells each year that will impact an additional 5000 children and their families each year.
Sanitation:
In the last couple of years, we have constructed 70 toilet stalls to replace the dangerous, disgusting pit toilets found in many schools and daycares. Each toilet stall provides for 40 children, thus impacting 2800 children in rural schools so far. We currently have pledges from our generous donors to construct 25 new toilets each year, impacting 1000 children each year. Whenever clean water and sanitation is provided for a child, it also has a significant impact on each of their families as well.
Summary:
As stated in the beginning of the blog, God keeps the books and these figures are simply the best estimate that we can give you. Our data collection is improving each year.
Employment 130 individuals
Teams 110 individuals per year
Optical 2000 individuals per year totaling over 30,000
Nutritional 12,500 each week (1.2 million meals per year)
These 12,500 children are impacted multiple times per week during the 40 weeks of the school year. Our total budget for everything we do is about $1.2 million. So for every dollar to our total budget a meal is provided.
Shoes 2000 individuals per year
Days for Girls 3000 individuals per year totaling over 7000
Church, Sports 4,375
and Assemblies
Teach a Child to Fish 5,000 individuals per year
These children are learning how to feed themselves and their families.
Water 5000 individuals per year totaling 10,000 so far with 20 wells
$30 per child will provide a complete water system in his school and these should last at least 30 years.
Sanitation 1000 individuals per year totaling 2800 so far at $3750 per stall
$100 per child will provide a toilet for a child at his or her school. These should easily last 25 to 30 years.
Total 35,115