Nuts About Nets

My church is in the middle of this huge campaign (called Nuts About Nets) to raise money to purchase mosquito nets to donate to the people of Nigeria in hopes to reduce malaria cases (3 million people die of Malaria every year). Is is so interesting to think that there is a curable disease that is killing a lot of children and adults in Africa. Transmission of Malaria can be prevented with this really great bed nets. They apparently are treated with this safe for people chemical that repels mosquitoes) What a simple mode of prevention! My church has a goal of donated 10,000 nets in the next few months and I thought I would make a small donation to help achieve the goal. ($10 buys 4 nets and each net can give protection to 3 people for 5 years so I thought that my small donation would go pretty far.)

We are getting the nets through an organization called Clarke Cares who's mission is "to save lives and reduce suffering from mosquito-borne illnesses for those with critical needs around the world". Clarke is also matching our donations net per net so even though I could not donate a lot, my small amount will be doubled.

I also wanted to donate to this cause because it was a project that the church we were working at in NYC was supporting as well. I'm not sure if they were partnering with a specific company or how there's really worked, but the goal was the same - donate bed nets to prevent malaria transmission. When I returned home it was neat to see that two churches in different states were supporting the same problem. The churches are about 17 hours away from each other and they both have different problems closer to home yet they both want to help the lives of people in Africa. I love the idea of different groups of people (who are not even aware of each other really) working to solve the same problem. The impact that people working together for the same cause is amazing. I'm excited to see my home church meet its fundraising goal and I hope the same for Trinity in Manhattan.