Creative Ways to Give Back at Your Next Event

You've probably heard us talk about charity:water before and their efforts to provide clean drinking water to those in need. I previously posted that they hosted a booth at a convention my Dad went to where they asked attendees to make a short walk carrying two 40-pound jerry cans full of water, something that women and children in developing nations do for hours each day to obtain water from a clean water source, in which a $5 donation was made to the charity for each person that participated. My Dad was able to join in and raise money and most importantly awareness for the charity. But are you wondering how charity:water even got started?

Well, in September 2006, charity:water founder Scott Harrison threw a party to celebrate his birthday and the launch of his new nonprofit. He charged his guests $20 and raised $15,000 for clean water projects. Since then,17,000 people have celebrated their birthdays with Harrison, raising nearly $9 million through the organization’s birthday campaign. The concept has caught on, and many hosts are now forgoing gifts and donating party proceeds to other charities as well. It's an amazing chain reaction that was created based on this giving back moment. One organization we'd like to shine the spotlight on today for having a similar campaign is MSTERIO.

MSTERIO (formerly HappyDoll) works to connect children by showing that giving is as great as receiving. This 501(c)(3) non-profit organization was founded in January 2011 by Nozomi Terao and has been making an impact ever since. The organization allows children to design handcrafted gifts that are destined to travel to other children around the world. At each destination, the receiving children are encouraged to play with the gifts and enjoy them for a short time before the gifts travel on to their next destination.

Everyone along the way can track the gifts and see where they are and where they have been. To date, MSTERIO gifts have been given to over 4,500 children in Albania, Colombia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Senegal, South Africa,  Spain, Uganda, Vietnam, and all over the United States.
Ultimately, after the gifts have traveled to many locations, they are given to a child in need somewhere in the world. MSTERIO provides all the materials, cleaning, sanitizing, shipping and tracking of the gifts. How special is that?

There are many ways to get involved with MSTERIO including sponsoring a doll for just $25, hosting a party where 5 dolls for $75 can be provided, having a school-wide fundraiser, or just simply volunteering for the organization. MSTERIO also accepts monetary donations. If this is something that interests you, we highly recommend getting involved. This amazing organization can truly change a child's life and you can too by incorporating their efforts into your next event. Like MSTERIO on Facebook for regular updates and devour the details of one of these special gifts today!