Sponsoring A Child | Spa Week Daily

I’m a Sponsor-Mommy!!!

There are certain things your soul absolutely needs. Inspiration, venting sessions with friends, human touch, and occasional peace and quiet to name a few.

For me, a few weeks ago during an epic spa experience, I realized that my soul was in need of something more… giving back. If you missed it, you MUST read about how I signed on to sponsor a child from the Philippines during a manicure!

I couldn’t contain my excitement when about two weeks later, a big white envelope came in the mail from Children International. This was it! I was about to find out the little Filipino girl for whom I’d be providing food, water, clothing, medication and education… forever! I peeled open the envelope smiling big, and gleamed when I saw this face smiling back at me:

Abegail B. Morate, nine years old, 3’11 and 44 pounds, from the projects of Manila. She is the youngest of seven; her older siblings Andrie, Albert, Ana, Armor, Alfred and Angelo Bolito range from ages 11 to 31. Her father Antidio is a street vendor and brings home $160 a month. Her mother Cecilia is unemployed.

Abegail lives with her parents in a home with one multi-use room and two bedrooms, with concrete walls and floors. Abegail sleeps on the floor with a mattress. She does chores like washing dishes, sweeping and running errands to help out. In her free time she likes playing hide and seek and various outdoor activities, and drawing is her favorite hobby.

I was very happy to learn that Abegail is attending school. Her favorite subjects are languages and mathematics. I hope that with my monthly contributions, she is able to one day go off to college, and ultimately become exactly the person she dreams of being – or perhaps someone she doesn’t even realize she could become!

A week or so after this initial welcome packet came in the mail, I received an update with a suggestion to write a letter. I haven’t done it yet, but I knew I was going to be writing this blog post so I’m going to do it right……. now:

Dear Abegail,

Hello, my beautiful new friend from across the globe! How is your day? I hope you are smiling!

I am so happy that I decided to sign up with Children International and that you are my child, because YOU, Abegail, deserve to have all the amazing things in life that you want!

Let me tell you a little bit about myself: I am 27 years old and I live and work in New York City. I am a writer and I help companies grow by connecting with people online – like on Facebook. Although I work at a computer a lot, one of my favorite things is being outdoors… just like you! I love walking in the park and going to the beach. That’s me in the sand! Do you ever go to Manila Bay? What is it like there?

You also said you are good at drawing. I can’t wait to see! My boyfriend (that’s us below!) is an artist and draws pictures of me sometimes. My sister, my mom and my grandma are also very talented artists. I will try to draw too – just for you. I’m not that bad :)

I learned about your big family, your home, and your favorite things in school. I can’t wait to hear more! What subjects are you taking in school? Are you learning English? Who are your best friends? What do you want to be when you grow up?

When you write me a letter, please let me know if there’s anything that you want – I will try my best to make it happen for you! Also, I very much hope to one day come visit you in the Philippines and meet you and your family. The fun thing is, just a few days after I decided to sponsor you, my sister Jessica (see her in my family picture below) decided to sponsor a little girl in the Philippines too! Do you know a 7-year-old girl named Ruchel? It looks like Jessica and I have a trip to take together one day! :)

Have a beautiful day, and I’ll talk to you soon!

Dream big!

XOXO,
Michelle Joni Lapidos

What do you think?! I just wrote it and haven’t sent it yet so let me know!

My soul feels oh-so good, and if you’re at all interested in doing something similar, for LESS than ONE DOLLAR a day, stop thinking about it and JUST DO IT! Check out children.org, read the stories on their community liftone.org for more inspiration. Don’t just feed your soul… feed a tummy with food, feed a mind with an education, and feed someone else’s soul with the most priceless gift of all: hope.

Manila Bay at Sunset

I Adopted a Child from the Philippines. During a Manicure.

Okay – so I didn’t exactly adopt her. However, I am now the proud new sponsor of a little girl in the Philippines, whose name I do not yet know. She’ll be getting three meals a day, water, clothing, medicine and an education. Because of me. Forever. I am just as surprised as you. Here’s how it happened.

It started out like any Friday night… I was on my way to a manicure after work. A man with a giant afro and a clipboard made piercing eye contact with me in Union Square – UGH. It’s happened a million times before. He was en route to make me feel guilty for not supporting some very worthy charity organization. I have no time. I’m a busy New Yorker. Blinders on, keep walking. Leave me alone!! But for some reason, this guy was able to pierce through my New Yorkerness and he had my attention. I decided to be nice and entertain him, entertain myself, and just chat – but it’s not like I was actually going to DO anything.

Justin, the aforementioned afro-and-clipboard-sporting man on a mission, represents Children International, a nonprofit organization that operates a one-on-one sponsorship program to help impoverished children worldwide become healthy, educated, self-sustaining and contributing members of society. CI has been around since 1936, checks out perfectly with the Better Business Bureau, and at 7pm, Justin hadn’t gotten one person to sign up all day. He saw my deep, inner compassion for this nameless, faceless, foreign child, and he stuck with it.

“Let me ask you this. If you had ONE less dollar in your pocket each day, would that make a difference in your quality of life?” Justin asked. Hmm. That’s less than half a subway ride. I slowly shook my head.

“Okay, if you had SIX less dollars a week, would that change your life?” My lunch alone is usually $10 a day. I shook my head again.

The program is $25 a month, and now it seemed like nothing. Justin showed me the list of countries they sponsor: India, Honduras, Zambia, the Philippines… “Pick someplace you want to travel!” he suggested. Hmmm… I do want to travel everywhere in the world, and it would be pretty special to have a child like this to visit. But no. I couldn’t just randomly pick a country and hand off my credit card on the street.

“You’ll be that child’s favorite person in the world!” Justin continued. “Just think: when they get Facebook one day, your photo is going to be right there under ‘family.’” Social media geek that I am, this kind of hit me. He said they’d draw me pictures and send them to me in the mail. I’d get letters from my child’s family thanking me for changing their lives, and one day, I could even go visit! Or perhaps fly them to New York for an NYU college education? It’s been done before.

Street children in the Philippines

But let’s not get carried away… I’m not rich (yet), and for him to think I was going to make a permanent decision like this on the fly was crazy! “I can’t do this right now! Please stop it!” I pleaded. “I really love the concept but I don’t have the money right now and it’s cold and I’m on my way to a manicure and it’s just too much pressure to make a decision like this!!!”

He interrupted softly: “Michelle. BREATHE. It’s okay. Are you ready? Deep breath in…”

I stopped in my tracks. We looked each other in the eye, and together we took a nice, long, sweet inhale.

“Now, deep breath out.”

And we slowly let the air out.

We repeated this exercise three times. There, right there in the middle of Union Square, two strangers breathed deeply and in sync. I was calm. My head was cleared. I was smiling.

And so, naturally, Justin came along with me to my manicure appointment.

“Ten minute massage for you?” my manicurist asked Justin, whom I introduced as my new friend. It was then I learned that Justin had never gotten a massage before. I insisted he get one! Oh, the health benefits and relaxation! Just like Justin’s job is getting people to sponsor children, my job is to make sure people are getting massages. And so he did, while I started my manicure and let all of this information sink in. He’d been working for Children International for over six months, and on that day it lead him to experience his very first massage. It was destiny.

I thought… and thought. Here I was, spending $10 on my weekly manicure. That could mean shoes, medicine and dinner for a week for someone. I’ve been going through some personal renaissances lately, discovering more about myself and a deeper meaning to life, and then it hit me. Yes. YES! YESYESYES YES! I feel eternally lucky to have grown up as fortunate as I did, and millions and millions of children are suffering every single day. I wanted to help one of them. I had never wanted anything more.

After Justin’s chair massage, he sat down next to me with that post-massage happy glow. “Wow. I definitely want more of those.” I had changed him. And you know what? He had changed me.

“I am going to sponsor a little girl from the Philippines,” I stated, and I had never been more sure of anything in my life.

Best spa day EVER!

I can’t wait to find out who she is! I should find out within the next few weeks and will be sure to update you. Check out the CI community, liftone.org, for blogs and photos from sponsors and children around the world. And when I do go to visit my little girl in the Philippines, I’m definitely bringing her some fun nail polish.

TELL ME! Do any of you sponsor children through an organization? How do you like it? Or, have you been considering it?