Dan Courney is an American missionary to India, serving the impoverished area of Guntur. Originally from New York, Dan left the comforts of America to serve some of the most forgotten people of Asia.

In just a few years, Dan has accomplished so much in India. One key thing he has accomplished is establishing the Gospel Light Mission Orphanage Project in Guntur housing 10 abused and homeless boys. Dan and his wife are expanding their work and building a girl’s orphanage. Amazingly, Dan has been able to accomplish all of this without the support of any mission board. He is completely dependant on private contributions and support.

That’s where Hungry For A Day wants to help.

The need for food is a daily necessity for the children of the Gospel Light Mission Orphanage. Dan is feeding many children that live in the orphanage. Because of poor hygienic conditions, widespread diseases like AIDS and the contamination of the water in many areas, being able to create nutritionally sound meals is both necessary and difficult.

Here is the good news: Our American dollar will go a lot further there then it will here. For just $1.00, we can give an orphan girl three quality meals. Our goal this month is to feed 10 orphan girls three meals a day for two months. $30.00 provides a month’s worth of food & complete care for one orphaned Indian girl. Not only do these children get full bellies, they’ll learn to read and write, and get spiritual nurturing as well.

It’s really simple. What can you sacrifice this month to feed a hungry girl in India? Can you feed one of these precious girls for a week? Skip just one lunch and donate your lunch money. What about providing for an entire month? Sure, skip your movie and dinner so they can eat for an entire month.  The core of Hungry For A Day is going without so someone else can have.  Even a small gift of $1.00 provides a day’s worth of food.  This is a project that EVERYONE can get involved in.

We know what the need is. We know what the solution is. You can get involved.

Give at h4ad.com/go-hungry

Before they can help these girls and women move to places of hope and restoration, relationships have to be created. Most initial meetings (and subsequent follow up’s) are done over a meal. One of Serenity’s Steps biggest needs is money to pay for these meals.
It typically costs about $15 to cover lunch between one of Serenity’s workers and one of the girls. Our goal is to cover three months of food costs for them – about $750.

In the month of April, H4AD is raising funds to purchase gift cards for the affected women. The gift cards provided will be solely used to meet one of the most basic human needs: food.

Serenity’s founder, Leroy Lamar, recalls approaching one woman with the intent of asking her if she was ready to turn away from prostitution. She told Leroy that she had not slept in four days and had not eaten in two days. Leroy knew that before he could ask her if she was ready to leave “the life”, he needed to feed her and give her a place to rest. Thankfully, he was able to take her to dinner and let her sleep on his family’s sofa. She slept uninterrupted for the next 24 straight hours. When she finally woke up, she immediately departed and went back to the streets. The next weekend, however, she returned and was ready to commit to turning her life around for good. That was over two years ago. Today she is still out of the terrible lifestyle that she came out of.

The food gift cards you provide will allow us to give other identical girls and women these same opportunities to resurrect their own lives.

We want to encourage our community to be generous! Can you give out of your abundance to help one of these girls take the first step towards hope?

You can get involved at h4ad.com/go-hungry

(via http://visual.ly/world-100-people)

This month, we’re partnering with our friends at Serenity’s Steps to help them with meals (details coming next week).

They have been around for almost a year now, but just got on twitter this week.
I noticed they had a grand total of five people following them (myself being one of the five).
Last night, I personally posted a status to twitter:

People the status went out to: 602. People that started following: 3.  I was actually surprised it was this high, but the people that followed all knew of Serenity’s Steps and jumped on board.

Then, I started specifically asking friends to follow:

People the ask went out to: 21. People that started following: 13.

What does this mean for you?
If you want to get other people excited about the things that inspire and motivate you – ASK! .. and don’t just ask, ask specifically.

It’s easy to breeze through someone’s social media update, but if asked specifically, people will notice.

A few observations:

• Everyone didn’t follow them – that’s ok! (if you don’t constantly annoy people, they’ll listen when you ask specifically)
• I only asked people that knew Leroy or people that I knew were passionate about fighting sex trafficking (make sure it’s a relevant ask)
• A specific ask was more powerful than a generic ask
• I even asked our followers on the @hungryforaday twitter feed to track along with our April partner two different times and got no response.  (the ask wasn’t as compelling as a personal ask)

How can you put these tips into action? I’d love for you to make a specific personal ask for Hungry For A Day or your favorite nonprofit. (remember, ask your friends who are familiar with the nonprofit, know people that are associated with it, or are passionate about the cause)

If you make the ask, let us know how it went in the comments below!

Meet Dan.

Dan Courney is an American missionary to India, serving the impoverished area of Guntur. Originally from New York, Dan left the comforts of America to serve some of the most forgotten people of Asia.

In just a few years, Dan has accomplished so much in India. One key thing he has accomplished is establishing the Gospel Light Mission Orphanage Project in Guntur housing 10 abused and homeless boys. Dan and his wife are expanding their work and building a girl’s orphanage. Amazingly, Dan has been able to accomplish all of this without the support of any mission board. He is completely dependant on private contributions and support.

That’s where Hungry For A Day wants to help.

The need for food is a daily necessity for the children of the Gospel Light Mission Orphanage. Dan is feeding many children that live in the orphanage. Because of poor hygienic conditions, widespread diseases like AIDS and the contamination of the water in many areas, being able to create nutritionally sound meals is both necessary and difficult.

Here is the good news: Our American dollar will go a lot further there then it will here. For just $1.00, we can give an orphan girl three quality meals. Our goal this month is to feed 10 orphan girls three meals a day for two months. $30.00 provides a month’s worth of food and complete care for one orphaned Indian girl. Not only do these children get full bellies, they’ll learn to read and write, and get spiritual nurturing as well.

It’s really simple. What can you sacrifice this month to feed a hungry girl in India? Can you feed one of these precious girls for a week? Skip just one lunch and donate your lunch money. What about providing for an entire month? Sure, skip your movie and dinner so they can eat for an entire month.  The core of Hungry For A Day is going without so someone else can have.  Even a small gift of $1.00 provides a day’s worth of food.  This is a project that EVERYONE can get involved in.

We know what the need is. We know what the solution is. You can get involved.

Give at h4ad.com/go-hungry