Have you ever bought a goat from a vending machine? How about warm clothing for a child, groceries for a family, or job training for the underemployed?
From November 29 through January 1, visitors at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park (4015 Twiggs Street, San Diego) can purchase essential items like those above from a Light the World Giving Machine to help those in need here in San Diego or throughout the world.
Fred Grand, President of the Old Town San Diego Chamber of Commerce, host site of the Giving Machines in San Diego, expressed the enthusiasm of the Chamber’s Board and members saying, “We are thrilled to host the Giving Machines this holiday season as part of our effort to encourage all San Diegans to look outside themselves and find ways to help and serve those in need in our own community and around the world.”
This year, Giving Machines will appear in more than one hundred cities worldwide, providing a fun, unique, and memorable way to do an instant act of kindness for someone in need.
The nonprofits featured in the San Diego area Giving Machines are:
- Corazon de Vida Foundation: Provides support to orphaned and abandoned children in Baja, Mexico. Their mission is to end child abandonment by breaking the cycle of poverty.
- Catholic Charities San Diego: Provides shelter, food, and immigration and refugee services. They care for the poor and the vulnerable. Their ministry is based on the person of Jesus, who “came not to be served, but to serve.”
- Gently Hugged: Collects and distributes gently used or new clothing and other items to babies of low-income, military, immigrant, and foster families.
- Historic Old Town Community Foundation: Partners with donors, nonprofits and community leaders to transform lives and create lasting change. They provide educational resources to elementary children, and in addition they assist the homeless with work experience, training and hot meals.
- Birthline of San Diego: Provides life-affirming support and resources to pregnant women and families with young children. They provide referrals for pregnancy, adoption, domestic violence as well as resources for self-sufficiency and independence.
- Save the Children: Global charity focused on child health, education, and protection working in the hardest to reach places where it’s toughest to be a child.
- Mentors International: Global non-profit organization that aims to enable thousands of families and individuals in developing countries to achieve lasting self-reliance through online education, face-to-face classroom education and one-on-one mentoring.
The Giving Machine is part of the annual Light the World initiative, sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church covers all operational expenses, enabling participating nonprofit organizations to receive one hundred percent of every donation.
Giving Machines first appeared in 2017, and more than $32 million has been contributed. With those funds, participating nonprofits have delivered hundreds of thousands of items worldwide.
Visit www.instagram.com/givingmachinesocal and www.facebook.com/givingmachinesocal for a list of events happening at the Old Town San Diego Giving Machines.
To learn more about this global Initiative, visit www.givingmachinesocal.com.
