Rouxbe for Life – Engine of Contribution
It’s a great day for all of us here at Rouxbe as today is the day that Rouxbe For Life is officially back on track – and we don’t mean Rouxbe Lifetime Memberships – that’s already back as you know.
For those of you that have been around since we started (back in 2005), you may recall that we used to contribute a percentage of proceeds to Rouxbe for Life – our social contribution initiative here at Rouxbe. And it’s more than just a sidebar program, it’s actually one of the key reasons we exist as a Company.
Watch Video on our “Engine of Contribution”
We’ve already fed over 100,000 hungry school children in developing countries through the World Food Programme school feeding program. To get things started again, we’ve selected a few other key hunger and sustainability programs that we’d like to support, such as school feeding and building schools in developing countries, along with contributing to the building of wells in Sudan and feeding at-risk children in Kenya.
Each month Rouxbe will contribute 5% of profits and you, our students, can help us by voting on where you’d like us to allocate the money. Read more and vote here.
This week we started contributing to the building of a school in Ethiopia by purchasing needed building items – elements such as classroom doors and chalkboards 
through an amazing organization called Imagine1day. We also contributed to the building of a well, where our contribution will provide the first fresh, clean drinking water in the new country of South Sudan. Lastly, we contributed to a project in Kenya that is trying to save 85 at-risk school children by providing them with school fees, care and meals for an entire school term. Small contributions, but over the lifetime of Rouxbe, with your support, we can make a positive impact.
Additional programs will be identified over time, but please check out the video overviews for the programs we’ve identified to date and cast your vote for next month’s donations.
Welcome everyone to Rouxbe for Life!
That is really terrific. I know what a change your lessons have made in my life and am sure it can happen elsewhere. God Bless.
While the plight of hungry children overseas tugs at the heart strings, a more dramatic and much sadder case exists in the United States itself. Within Appalachia there are hungry children that merit immediate help. Within the confines of Native American reservations there are hungry children. Within the black and white poorer populations there are children going to bed hungry every night. Within the deep South there are pocket where hungry children can be found. It is not hard to find all these children, not at all. Thus, while one is sorely moved by the pathetic and tragic pictures of children abroad, I urge you to support the hungry children in our nation FIRST. Let no child in America go hungry! We as a nation have long supported CARE and many charitable non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who are concerned about children outside our borders. But take care of American hungry children first and foremost. I know they exist. I was one.
I agree Richard, there are hungry children all over the world and while it is difficult to prioritize in the face of such sadness, we as a Company can only do so much. At the present time, we support a number of great organizations within the US that are trying to help hungry US people (children and adults) – and they are doing a great job. In fact there are hundreds and likely even thousands of local organizations (e.g. food banks, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc) that are trying to address this crisis locally. Organizations such as Farestart, Catalyst Kitchens and DC Kitchens feed thousands each and every day in the US. We chose hunger and sustainability programs in developing countries because we simply felt that they didn’t seem to have as much hope as the hungry people here in our developed world.
Furthermore, we look don’t look at the hunger crisis as an “us” and “them” scenario. You mention below that you hate it when money leaves this country when children go hungry here. We are all one within one population and that’s the world.
Thanks for your post and for the discussion. Sorry we can’t help everyone. We’ll do our best though over time.
Wanted to share a comment/question from a user and my response to it as it is something that has been asked before:
Here’s the comment we received today:
Forget starving kids in Africa and other overseas places. Man-up and feed the poor of southern Ohio, West Virginia and those poor throughout Appalachia. I hate it when money leaves this country while children here go hungry!
Here’s my response:
The reason we donate to third world countries is very simple. Those suffering from hunger in those countries have very little, and/or in most cases, zero access to any resources and therefore have no hope.
Here in North America, there are hundreds of thousands of amazing government sponsored and grass roots programs that are making great progress on addressing the local and national hunger challenges. Furthermore, the government feeds children each day in school in over 105,000 schools throughout the US. And here in Vancouver, there are dozens of places hungry people can go to get food if they need it (we donate food to some of them when we can).
Watch this video and you’ll hopefully begin to understand the difference in situation between hungry children here in North America and hungry children in some developing countries:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7-7BT33PnY&feature=related
Here, in North America you would rarely see a child dying from hunger on the side of the street.
Lastly, I do believe that hunger is a major problem here at home as well, which is why we support organizations like Farestart and DC Kitchens that feeds about 7,000 homeless and hungry people each and every day in America.
Hope this helps you better understand why we chose to focus our donation resources where we did.
[...] may recall that last month we reported the re-launch of Rouxbe for Life, our Engine of Contribution. In short, each month Rouxbe will contribute 5% of profits and you, our students, vote on where [...]