Quality of Life
Stitch by Stitch
Meet Elizabeth.
Her story is a sad long one. Taken from her family in Ghana as an infant, she has grown up without a mother, father, or close family to care for her. She has been passed from house to house, family to family, and town to town. In her short life, she has suffered significant abuse and maltreatment at the hands of those meant to care for her. Without a formal education to bolster her opportunities, she has struggled to provide herself with the most basic necessities: housing, food, and clothing.
Recently, VARAS (Volunteers for Amelioration Rural Areas) selected Elizabeth to enter their Women's Apprenticeship Program, where she is learning marketable skills such as sewing and dressmaking, along with English, Mathematics, Computer literacy, and other vital skills and trades to become financially independent.
With your support, The Heart Channels is helping Elizabeth and others like her to learn marketable trades to build self-worth and financial freedom.
Quality of Life
A Safe Family Environment
Recently, The Heart Channels provided resources for a young, working mother of six children —three teens, an 8-year-old, a 7-year-old, and a 2-year-old to relocate her family to a safer home and neighborhood.
The mother, employed full-time at a furniture store, was deeply concerned for her children's safety in the projects where sudden daytime shootings were becoming too common. She found an apartment she could afford to move to, but they required a move-in deposit and other cost-prohibitive fees. The Heart Channels, learning of this young mother's plight, quickly provided the necessary resources to make the move possible. The mother was beyond grateful. After moving to her new apartment in a safer neighborhood, she wrote, "I don't know what I've ever done to deserve such wonderful friends as part of my life. Words could never explain. With this opportunity, I intend to do what I couldn't do before: raise my children in a peaceful environment. I have to keep working hard, but everything feels so much more meaningful and possible now."
Health & Wellbeing
Helping a Homeless Shelter in England
“Like ripples on the water, gifts given with love expand and grow!” Our friend Kemarley’s mom let us know about the need for food and gifts at a homeless shelter in England near where Kemarley now attends school. Donors to The Heart Channels were able to send funds to make it possible for her to share love and food with those most in need in her neighborhood.”
Health & Wellbeing
Annie and Friends create masks during COVID
When Covid first arrived and the only defense we had were masks, Annie used the skills she learned from the costume shop at Theater School—making her own patterns and sewing masks, first for friends and family and then for nurses in nursing homes, Native American homeless youth, and many others.
Health & Wellbeing
Lifting Arijah
I can't thank you enough for helping us raise $4,000 to buy Arijah a wheelchair and a stairlift. We made it happen with your help.
-Love Annie
Meet Arijah. She was born with a genetic glitch that limits her vision, speech and her ability to walk. Now at 17, Arijah, is too large for her mother to continue to carry her up the stairs to their 2nd floor apartment in Anguilla. She and her mother were in urgent need our help.
Meet our friend, Kemarley and follow his journey
Annie loves to swim at Meads Bay, Anguilla and one day a boy with special needs named Kemarley wanted to borrow her blue swimming goggles. That was the beginning of what would become a beautiful friendship, and one that would inspire Annie to write and illustrate a book about him.
Education
Education
We provided Students in Need with Tablets for College
In ongoing work with the Los Angeles Unified School District counselors, Annie supports purchasing computer tablets for foster children who need them to continue their education in colleges and university
