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The Good People Fund

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Breaking the Chain Through Education

It could be the biggest social studies project ever, beginning in a Metuchen (NJ) High School classroom and reaching 5,000 miles west to Africa.

In 2006, teacher Evan Robbins read about child enslavement in Ghana and brought the story to his students. Together, they dived into the issue and committed to act. Breaking the Chain Through Education grew as successive classes of Evan’s built community and global partnerships to increase awareness, raise funds, rescue Ghanaian children, and put them on a path to long-term success and independence.

BTCTE helped build a school in the Lake Volta region and is currently helping to support 90 formerly trafficked children to end cycles of poverty that lead to child slavery.

Our funds help underwrite the organization’s minimal overhead.

Necha Malka

In Israel, Shira Gilor, a resident of Hashmonaim, thought she knew her neighbors well until the day she was approached by a local mother. The woman confided that she did not have enough food for her children. Quietly, Shira delivered a package to the family, an event which became a personal turning point, as she pondered the food waste she witnessed around her.

Shira knew that this woman’s situation was not an exception, and so began her grassroots, neighborhood operation to secure food and discreetly feed her hungry neighbors. Necha Malka (named for the mother of a generous community member who wanted to help Shira) serves 24 families vetted by local social workers.

Volunteers facilitate the work and supermarket scrip (which we help underwrite) makes possible the purchase of any food that is not donated.

One Can Help

Paying for a swimsuit helps a boy enjoy summer, but also helps a mom rebuild a relationship with her son returning home from foster care. Paying for cell phone minutes helps a foster care child speak to her dad. When attorney Anne Bader-Martin’s organization makes modest payments like these, filling in where resources are lacking, they stop a cycle that usually deteriorates even further — and secure positive outcomes for vulnerable families. One attorney shares, “Twenty-five dollars [for an ID] might seem like a small way to help someone, but for my client it made all the difference. … She is now employed again for the first time in more than six months!”

Needs increased 40% during the pandemic. OCH served 3,000 children and families, providing emergency assistance in the form of supermarket cards, laptops, rent assistance and more. Our funds are used for a new computer operating system.

S.A.H.I.

“GPF is a family, and the connection is forever.”

When I think of The Good People Fund, I’m reminded of the innocence and wide eyes of an entrepreneur beginning the journey of social change, and I’m filled with a great feeling of gratitude and inspiration. There is a saying that if you really want something, the universe will help you, and GPF was such a force for S.A.H.I.

The day we learned that S.A.H.I. had grown beyond GPF’s criteria for funding was bittersweet. But I realized how far we’d come and that GPF is a family, and the connection is forever. I will always feel very honored and humbled to be part of this exceptional family of good people supporting good people doing good.

I take very seriously my responsibility as a member of this family to always remember the importance of helping people at the beginning of their way. I will always make time to help new entrepreneurs and try to give them some of what GPF gave to me and to S.A.H.I., including encouragement, advice, and faith.

In 2020, when S.A.H.I. was selected to receive the Israeli Presidential Award for Volunteerism, one of the first people I called was Naomi Eisenberger at GPF. Together, we reflected on our journey together. The moment said everything.

— Avraham Hayon, CEO and Co-Founder, S.A.H.I.

Gabriel Project Mumbai

Jacob Sztokman was in Mumbai, India and witnessed abject need in city slums. The exposure shook him — to the extent that he abandoned his career to establish Gabriel Project Mumbai and uplift lives in challenged urban areas and rural villages.

GPM uses a holistic model of individual and community empowerment, recognizing that education, health care, nutrition, and livelihoods are mutually supporting goals. For example, a GPF-supported project gives women the opportunity to cook nutritious meals for school children, and also encourages them to prepare food for public sale … creating income through social enterprise.

As the pandemic takes its toll in GPM communities, the organization’s Operation CoVER elevates hygiene programs, emergency relief, and vaccination education and outreach. Our funds support GPM’s nutrition program and the purchase of a staff vehicle.

Kaima

“Still grateful for the enduring partnership.”

I don’t feel like a Good People Fund alum in the sense that I “graduated.” I am still a student, still learning, and still grateful for the enduring partnership.

Kaima’s partnership with GPF affirms something essential that would have helped me in my youth — people who tell you your dreams are crazy will likely remain stuck in the same place, so just keep pursuing your dreams, see the big picture, and never give up!

I am both personally and professionally more attuned now to working to identify potential in others. This is exactly what GPF does. Kaima now frequently meets with younger amutot starting-out to help identify the strengths and weaknesses of their operating model. Sometimes this is done in concert with Naomi at GPF and sometimes on our own. These are some of our lasting GPF moments.

We count ourselves fortunate to not only have benefitted from funding but also from the ongoing friendship and professional guidance which helped us develop from a single youth-run, CSA operating farm into a network of four locations in Israel and one in Tanzania! Our story would simply not be possible without the involvement of GPF.

— Yoni Yefet-Reich, Co-Founder and Director, Amutat Kaima