Dear Orphaned Starfish Foundation Supporters,
I have just returned from inaugurating our newest program in Quito, Ecuador and our programs in Brazil.
In this Holliday Season, you all should know how deeply these children, and the now over 8,000 like them, truly offer thanks for your hearts and dedication.
I am beyond thankful to have each and every one of you on the Board of Orphaned Starfish and wanted to give you a year-end summary of the most successful year in OSF history.
Orphaned Starfish Program - 2014
Programs & Scholarships
Orphaned Starfish Foundation started 2014 with 29 programs in 12 countries serving 5,500 children.
We ended 2014 serving and incredible 38 programs in 17 countries serving over 8,000 children worldwide!!!
We added Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador, and Nicaragua as new OSF countries, leaving us only four countries in Latin America without an OSF program (Venezuela, Cuba, Paraguay and Uruguay). We added to our existing country programs with new programs in Mexico and Colombia, including our first program in a safe house for girls escaping sex trafficking.
We expanded our Life Skills programs throughout all programs in Colombia and Panama and will be expanding throughout Central America and the DR in 2015.
We expanded our English Language program to now encompass over one quarter of the programs served and hope to double that in 2015.
Our Orphaned Starfish Foundation has been lauded by many in the non-profit community for our outstanding performance, dollars per child served, low expenses as a percentage of both funds raised and program expenses, et cetera.
We continue to grow and will grow further our press exposure beyond just that of the Gala, with interviews and pieces on CBS and other venues.
We have developed and will launch a new website in early 2015 and have coordinated and grown all aspects of Social Media.
We have over 20 orphanages, homes for abused children and community centers on our waiting list in the countries we serve and several more countries we wish to serve. However, we will slow our growth a bit in 2015 , with only five new programs and only two to three new countries planned, in order to improve the services offered to existing programs even more.
We doubled Orphaned Starfish’s Scholarships in 2014, with five new scholarships in 2014 and will have our first and possibly second graduation of an OSF Scholarship Recipient next year in Panama.
In sum, this was truly the most successful year for The Orphaned Starfish Foundation.
On behalf of all Orphaned Starfish children, Happy Holidays!
Andrew B. Stein
Founder & Executive Chairman
The Orphaned Starfish Foundation
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OSF. YOU ARE NOT ONLY CHANGING LIVES, YOU ARE NOW SAVING THEM AS WELL.
Please continue to give at www.osf.org/donate