We would like to thank everyone who helped out with our clothing/soft goods drive last month. All the efforts and donations really paid off. We broke the record at Value Village for the amount of donations and received a check today for $2842.40! You donated over 14,000 pounds of clothing, bedding, accessories, towels, etc!

The money raised will be used for our upcoming medical mission to buy supplies, medications, baby formula, etc. Thank you all for your efforts, and keep going through your closets! We are going to have another drive next month. I know it is a high bar to surpass, but if we can get even close to what was brought in with the last clothing drive, it is a huge help!

Next Drive Ends April 15, 2015

If you want to be involved in the next drive, consider your children’s schools, your church or other civic group, or even just around your neighborhood. We have plastic bags and flyers we can send to you to hand out – if each child and their family in a class of 25 fills just 2 bags, at an average of $4 per bag, that is $200 we can use to buy 6 families food for a month, or 40 cans of baby formula. In exchange, you get to clean out the clutter from closets, drawers, bathrooms, garages, kitchens, and more!

Collect the bags, and bring them here to our office, or we can arrange a drop off time at the Value Village we are working with here in Seattle. We will close the drive on April 15th. Contact Brenda in the office or by email at brenda at salaamculturalmuseum.org for the details and to sign up to help.

If you live outside of the Seattle area, but would like to do a clothing drive in your area, contact Brenda and she can put you in touch with the coordinator at Value Village to find the closest one to you and set up the details for your drive.

Thank you again to everyone who donated, keep that spring cleaning going!

 

Two of our past mission participants, Omar and Jasser Kassab from Switzerland, took some of the paintings done by children at the children’s  center while they were there, framed them, then auctioned them off in Switzerland. They created an NGO called Syrian Refugee Crisis to collect the funds. It was a huge success and they raised a large sum of money which they then donated to the Malki-SCM Children’s Center. Thank you Omar and Jasser!

 

Below are photos from the food distribution we held just 2 days ago, and the others are photos from the container that just arrived and is being unloaded into our warehouse in Madaba.

Thank you everyone that donated to the food drive. We were able to distribute the food to refugees in the Madaba are, and will do more as more funds come in. This is one of the fastest ways we can help the refugees- cash donated to us in the US is wired to our office in Madaba and they turn around and purchase food from a local grocer that we have negotiated a special price with for the items in the package. The turn around can be very quick, ensuring your donation gets put to use immediately for the people that need it most.

The goods that arrived in the container are winter clothes, blankets, coats, and more. They will be organized in the warehouse and distributed within the next few days.

 

We often think of the Middle East as hot and dusty, desert and palm trees, so how could it possibly be so cold people could freeze to death? Yes, it does get very cold in the winter in many places of the Middle East, particularly in the Levant region which is Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Over the past several years, there have been snow storms, followed by freezing temperatures, then to make things even worse, the snow melts just enough to cause flooding and more misery. The storm hitting the region now is called Huda in Jordan and Zina in Lebanon.

Winter storm brings misery to Middle East refugees

This year is no different, and snow storm is descending on the region again today. The Syrian refugees who are living in tents have little to keep them warm, and freezing to death is a very real possibility. Please help us get them blankets to keep them warm during this onslaught of winter weather. We need monetary donations that we can wire immediately to our office in Jordan so the staff there can go and buy blankets and distribute them in the next few days. Please donate on our website here by clicking the Pay Pal Donate button or click this link here to donate to the general fund, which will go to buy blankets.

Thank you!

More about the winter storm:

Levant braces for violent Huda Snowstorm

 

We have a few seats available for our event on August 23rd to raise funds for the Malki-SCM Children’s Center in Amman, Jordan. Proceeds from the ticket sales will go to the center, and additional funds will be raised from an auction, that will be conducted over 3 formats: online, silent, and live.

Here are just a few of the items you will be able to bid on:

• Superbowl 2015 Package
• Dancing with the Stars tickets
• Framed photo collage of all 6 James Bond actors – signed by all!
• Be a fighter pilot for a day
• South Africa Safaris
• Gourmet Dinner for 6 cooked in your home
• Henna Artist for your party
• Hand crafted jewelry
• and much more!

Our online auction just got posted so you can start viewing those items and bidding right now! Just follow this link to our online auction site.

All proceeds generated from this event will go to the Malki-SCM Children’s Center.

We received a case of playing cards with beautiful images from Persian artists. The cards are in a standard deck, coated, and ready for play.  We are selling them for $15 per deck, and that includes shipping to you. Please follow this link to our donation page to purchase.