Mission Possible: Raising Funds for Haiti Mission Trip

I first learned about FUNDrive® from church friends that were helping me raise funds for my mission trip to Haiti. After I received the contact information, I reached out to the FUNDrive® representative in my area. She was such an amazing person, so informative and made the whole process so easy.

A group from my church, together with the Be Like Brit Foundation, will be traveling to Haiti in October 2019. On this trip, the group will build a home for a family in need. We are permitted to bring necessities needed to support the orphanage at the Be Like Brit Foundation, spend time with the 66 children that live there and assist the community in different ways. There is such a great need in this country, and the impact you make while there makes it all worth it.

It was so helpful that FUNDrive didn’t cost anyone any money. You just had to clean out your closet and donate clothes, shoes, etc. and drop the bags off at the designated site. After a few weeks of posting the information on social media, passing out flyers to neighbors, sending texts, and more, the big day came. It was time to do my final drop off. My goal was to raise $500 but needed $590 to cover the balance of my mission trip. The FUNDrive team weighed my delivery, and I was shocked when I received the receipt with the final weight and price. It equaled exactly $590, the exact amount I needed to cover the balance of my trip! Wow! So thankful to God, who never fails! Thank you to my friends, family, and to all who supported me 100% and made it possible. I could never have done this event without their help. Thank you, FUNDrive!!

The BeLikeBrit organization was founded in memory of Britney Gengel, a 19-year-old from Massachusetts. Britney decided to travel to the country of Haiti with her college, Lynn University, in 2010. Britney was overwhelmed by the devastating poverty visible everywhere. Despite their living conditions, the children she met gave her so much love she was inspired to send the following text to her mother: “They love us so much and everyone is so happy. They love what they have, and they work so hard to get nowhere, yet they are all so appreciative. I want to move here and start an orphanage myself.” Three hours after that text, a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing an estimated 300,000 people, including Britney. Her family could not let her die in vain. In loving memory, they started the Be like Brit Foundation, Inc. In just two years, a 19,000 square foot earthquake-proof, non-adoptive orphanage was built in Grand Goave, Haiti-- the town where Brit was supposed to travel to the day after the earthquake. Today they have 33 girls and 33 boys living at Brit’s Home. The number 33 is symbolic of the 33 days Brit was missing in the rubble at the Hotel Montana. Their mission is to raise the next generation of leaders in Haiti. Her parents wrote a book, Heartache, and Hope in Haiti, Britney’s story.