It's Official: We're a 501(c)3!

We are excited to announce that Benevolent Heart, Inc. is now officially a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization! This designation as a public charity will create more opportunities to expand our soup kitchen and international mission efforts, enable collaboration with new partners and grant-making entities, and expand the value of contributions by our gracious donors. Gifts and bequests to Benevolent Heart are now tax-deductible.

We hope you will consider supporting our mission!

The Benevolent Heart Team

Additions to Board Leadership

We are excited to announce that six members have been elected to the Board of Directors on July 07, 2019. Please join us in warmly welcoming:

1. Betial Asmerom of San Diego, California

2. Justin Blau of Las Vegas, Nevada

3. Jonathan Cruz of San Diego, California

4. Ryan Kelly of Boston, Massachusetts

5. Edmund Qiao of San Diego, California

6. Patrick Yu of Boston, Massachusetts

The contributions and leadership experience of our new directors will help advance our mission and expand our impact here in San Diego County and abroad in high-poverty regions in Southeast Asia. There are many plans in store for this coming year!

The Benevolent Heart Team

Unsplash photo credit(s): @ammiengo, @youngalicesalvatore

Mobile Soup Kitchen: April 2019

On Sunday, April 21, 2019, Benevolent Heart celebrated Easter by running a mobile soup kitchen that served lunch for our fellow San Diegans in-need. Volunteers prepared and packed 108 brown-bag lunches, created from just ~$161 in donations (less than $1.50 per lunch!), once again demonstrating that relatively low cost can produce meaningful impact.

Each meal contained a freshly-prepared hot dog, a turkey sandwich, condiments, a cookie, a banana, and a water bottle. An additional 50-pack of soft beverages were contributed in-kind by another donor. In usual Benevolent Heart fashion, the mobile soup kitchen involved direct hand-to-hand delivery of the lunches. The event proved highly successful as evidenced by no remaining brown-bags by the end of the service.

Note: As Benevolent Heart continues to grow, we aim to develop stronger relationships with the neighbors that we serve. As such, we are working toward establishing a more permanent soup kitchen residency in San Diego to foster a safe, community space with a more consistent service schedule. Stay tuned!

The Benevolent Heart Team

Inaugural Mission Trip: December 2018

Dear friends of Benevolent Heart,

This organization began when we collaborated with locals in Vietnam to identify high-poverty communities with great shortage of food and water. With hopes to meet that need, we decided to start small in order to carefully prove the viability and efficacy of our budding charitable intentions. In the fall of 2018, Benevolent Heart set a $2,000 fundraising goal for the procurement of non-perishable essentials. Today, we’re proud to share with you a snapshot of what we actually achieved through our inaugural 2018 Charity Mission!

With great surprise, contributions from our earliest, loving supporters far exceeded the fundraising goal, ultimately raising $5,000 in small-cash donations. With that scale, we were instead able to purchase enough supplies to assemble month-long care packages for our target recipients. All of our volunteers also donated their time and resources to afford international travel, safety and support services, and other supplies, which allowed the mission to be carried out with zero-overhead. Therefore, every penny of the $5,000 went to individuals in-need. Comprised of American and Vietnamese volunteers, our team served children and families in Ho Chi Minh City (HCM) and rural sites across Ninh Hoa Province (NHP) during this first mission!

Inaugural Mission Impact:

• Mission components: 3 sites, 10 days

• Volunteers: ~20 U.S. and Vietnamese citizens

• Total funds utilized: $5,000.00

  • Overhead costs: 0%

• Total families served by food packages: 587

  • Disabled residents at Lam Quang Buddhist Crisis House, HCM: 137

  • Disabled families at Hoi Nguoi Mu Thi Xa Ninh Hoa, NHP: 220

  • Under-resourced families at village sites across NHP: 230

• Additional charitable activity

  • Cash donations on-site: $485.00
    

Anatomy of a Food Package:

The value of each package totaled approximately US$7.69 and included the following supplies:

• 1 x Rice sack (5 kilograms = approx. 3 - 4 week supply per family)

• 1 x Ramen box (30 servings)

• 1 x Fish sauce bottle (½ liter)

• 1 x Soy sauce bottle (¼ liter)

• 1 x Vegetable oil bottle (1 liter)

• 1 x MSG flavoring package (½ kilograms)

• 1 x Cookie box (½ kilogram) or 1 condensed milk can (414 milliliters)
  

As the American dollar stretches so far when beyond the United States, relatively little cost was able to make such a meaningful difference for so many others. We are confident in the impact that Benevolent Heart has made and will continue to make after this first international mission. With this experience now under our belts, we’re excited for what’s to come in the near future: determination of 501(c)3 status, election of members to our board leadership, and new fundraising! Most of all, we can’t wait to begin planning the 2019 Charity Mission!

Thank you for supporting our mission by reading this impact update.

The Benevolent Heart Team