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Dear friends, family, and neighbors:
We are pleased to report that HUMANKIND has grown to be something bigger than we ever thought it would be! After our first month of operation, we supplied new school clothes to 9 refugee children through our friends at World Relief. Since then, we’ve been saving up and are now finalizing orders to purchase new school clothes for dozens more children as the new school year begins!
Also, in just four short months, our inventory is overflowing thanks to your generous donations. In fact, we are bursting at the seams and need to find a bigger space! This is why we are asking for your help. We’d like to move into a new retail space and need about $2,000 to do it. This sum includes a deposit, rent, turning on the utilities, and a few fixtures for the store.
We are asking you to consider sponsoring HUMANKIND in 2009 with a one-time payment of either $50 or $100. This donation could be made by your business, band, household, church, youth group, etc. In exchange, we will:
- supply you with a framed print to display in your business, your church, or on your band’s merch table that says you support HUMANKIND and its mission of providing needy refugee children with appropriate school clothes.
- display your name or the name of your organization on our “Wall of Fame” in our store and on our website for the remainder of the calendar year.
- provide you with a receipt of your tax-deductible donation
You can make donations by mailing them to us at: HUMANKIND c/o The Anchor / 629 3rd Ave S / Nashville, TN / 37210 or by giving online through PayPal.
We at HUMANKIND already feel so blessed by the way our local community has responded to help us meet an immediate need. We appreciate your consideration helping HUMANKIND grow and extend a helping hand to more refugee families.
Sincerely,
Ryan & Christina Rado
HUMANKIND
HUMANKIND started as a vision in 2008. We took a trip to Austin, Texas, and while we were there, were pointed in the direction of a vintage store called Cream Vintage. The store selection was pretty great, but the cool thing was that they would alter any of their clothes to fit your specifications. Ryan thought that was doable, and wondered why there was nothing like that in Nashville. He decided to start the store, and he and I (Christina) decided that, in light of everything we’ve learned and gone through in the past year or so, that it should be a nonprofit.
We picked the cause of giving uniforms to refugee kids in Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS, for short). MNPS requires what they call “standard school attire” for all Pre-K through 12th grade students – collared shirts that are certain colors according to which school you attend, khaki or blue slacks/skirts, belts, and appropriate shoes. I was a teacher in Metro Schools for one year, and taught a 3rd grade class of kids who were from other countries and learning English. Over half of my students were refugees from Somalia and Sudan. The smallest boy in my class with the longest name, Abdirahmani, came to school every Monday with this button down yellow dress shirt that was a couple sizes too big. It was clean and pressed. By Friday, after wearing that same shirt all week, his nice yellow shirt that he was so proud of had chocolate milk stains down the front, and mud on the elbows from where he fell playing soccer. That shirt would get washed over the weekend, and he’d wear it again the following week. Many of my other children were like that – they only had a couple of shirts or pants that were “school appropriate” and wore those same garments all the time. Or, others would wear short sleeves or shorts in the winter because they did not have clothes that were warm enough that would fit the dress code.
We think that kids should go to school in clean, comfortable clothes. We think that kids should have a choice of what to wear in the morning – something they feel good in, something that improves their level of confidence. We think that families that are new to America and trying to acclimate should not have to stress out about finding the right school clothes in the approved colors and styles.
The name HUMANKIND simply refers to the fact that we are all human – all part of the human race, all with the same basic needs, one of those needs being clothing. When you donate clothes and shop at HUMANKIND, you’re helping someone else obtain the clothes they need to stay warm, be clean, look good, and have a great day at school. And we think that’s pretty important.
Ryan and Christina Rado
HUMANKIND
