More on Donating to Pens for Kids

I have sent several shipments of my unneeded pens to the great charity, Pens for Kids.  Pens for Kids (PFK) provides pens to children in Africa to help them enhance their educational experience.  Many of these children do not even have pens and pencils, which makes learning and doing homework extremely difficult.  I found this cause to be extremely important because education is what saves many of these children in their poverty and disease-stricken communities.

In addition to pens, PFK accepts monetary donations that are used for postage to ship pens to Africa.

I spoke with Linda, the Executive Director of PFK, about whether they are getting enough pens and money to adequately serve the children.  She told me that:

“Getting pens donated is not problem (we’re currently receiving about 2000 pens a month from all over the world including a pen company in the US, but the issue we have is paying to ship them to Africa. We receive about $200 per month in monetary donations and we pay for the balance needed personally.  Right now we are collecting pens to personally take . . . a couple friends and I are going on a safari and are trying to get the airlines to let us take extra bags.”

Even though PFK gets a good number of pens, there are still not enough pens for all who need them.  Linda also told me, ” These countries are poverty stricken and dealing with child AIDS, malaria, infant mortality, corrupt governments, lack of food and clothing etc.   School is TRULY a luxury and the one area that we chose to focus on to make a difference. Education is the only way to solve the other issues.    We are a grassroots effort and 100% of what ever is notated – pens or cash for shipping  – goes directly to the kids.  We have no paid employees and are only a group of 6 people around the world slowly making a difference.  So, the short answer is no, we are always under-supplied but $$ is the bigger challenge.”

It is truly touching that people like Linda make these trips and personally supplement PFK’s financial deficits to help children in need.  Please visit www.pensforkids.com to learn more about how you can help.  You can ship pens to PFK’s Long Beach location or directly to Africa.  You can also send money to help PFK ship pens to Africa.