Every year, Where Most Needed gifts are the most popular gift given by Holt donors. This fund is especially for children and families experiencing critical need — everything from hunger to a sudden illness or injury to an emergency need for warm shelter. As it’s named, donations to this fund go wherever they’re needed most, to whomever needs it most. But what does it look like when a child or family receives one of these gifts?
On two different occasions, Eshe and her family were in crisis. Today, she describes these Where Most Needed gifts she received as “nothing but lifesaving.”
Eshe and her children were in crisis. Her husband died, and she was now a single mother supporting seven children. She sold fruits at the local market, but barely earned enough to feed her children.
All eight of them lived in a one-room, rugged, muddy government-owned house. Her children were hungry. Eshe didn’t know if she could keep caring for them. She saw how some other families had placed their children in an orphanage, just so that they’d have enough to eat. The thought of this broke her heart, but she didn’t know what else to do…
That’s when she met Holt’s partner organization near her village in Ethiopia. And right away, she received help from Holt donors’ Where Most Needed gifts.
She and her children received free health care, each of the seven children was enrolled in school, and she was empowered to earn a greater income to support her family.
She received money to buy vegetable seeds, taro plants and false banana plants to expand her garden. She grew more food to feed her children and sold the rest in the market, earning a greater profit than ever before!
“She was inspired to have a better lifestyle,” says Holt’s partner organization in Ethiopia. “She unreservedly strived to feed and save her family from abandonment.”
“Eshe was inspired to have a better lifestyle. She unreservedly strived to feed and save her family from abandonment.”
But then, a couple years later, the COVID-19 pandemic began. And to make matters even worse, her community was devastated by a terrible drought. Her crops failed.
Once again, she and her children were in crisis.
“The disaster badly affected Eshe’s income generating activities as she depends on collecting and reselling fruits in the local market,” says Holt’s partner organization. “The situation was beyond the bearing capacity of vulnerable families like Eshe.”
But then once again, Holt donors showed up when she needed help the most.
Eshe and her family received boxes of emergency food, just in time. Her children had enough to eat, and she was so relieved and overwhelmed with gratitude to have someone else looking out for her family.
“[Your help] has been a great relief for me,” says Eshe. “I have expanded my income generating activities more than before and I am able to save some money weekly, and at least feed my family better than before. During such hard times, the food supplies that I received were nothing but lifesaving.”
