MAD4kids EScapes Snow to Help Less Fortunate Kids in Guatemala

MAD4kids (Making a Difference for Kids), a club at both Ramapo High School and Eisenhower Middle School of the FLOW (Franklin Lakes, Oakland, and Wyckoff) district, was established four years ago by five determined girls, now juniors at Ramapo High School. MAD4kids is a 501C3 nonprofit charity that helps to fundraise money and awareness for charities located in Guatemala, UN Charity GirlUp, and other various charities. Not only does MAD4kids make an impact on the less fortunate, but it also empowers local teens, allowing them to take initiative in fundraising and allowing them to make a direct change by venturing out to impoverished areas of Guatemala. Last year, in February 2013, MAD4kids made their first trip to Guatemala and helped work with charities such as Hug It Forward, Safe Passage, and HELPs International. This February, MAD4kids is traveling to Guatemala again to do hands on work with more charities. In addition to delivering more than 200 lbs of donated school supplies, MAD4kids will be helping NGOs, non government organizations, such as Hug It Forward, with building schools from recycled plastic bottles, HELPs International with installing cookstoves to reduce carbon emissions and improve health conditions in poor Guatemalan homes, and the United Nations GirlUp program, Abriendo Oportunidades, with painting a facility that will serve as a safe house and educational training center for indigenous Guatemalan girls and young women with limited access to education and proper health services. For details and pictures from the trip or about the club/charity, feel free to email us at madness4kids@gmail.com.