Featured Charity: The Moyer Foundation

If you’ve followed Major League All-Star pitcher Jaime Moyer’s celebrated career, you know that he has been recognized as much for his work off the field as on.  In 2000, Jamie and his wife Karen established The Moyer Foundation.  Since then, the Foundation has raised more than $19 million to provide comfort and support to hundreds of programs that provide direct services and support to children enduring a time of profound physical, emotional, or financial distress. 

Their work strikes a very personal cord for me.  When my wife and her twin sister were 15 years old, they lost their dad to cancer.  Both described feeling isolated and lonely in the years following his death as they struggled to connect to kids their age that had experienced such a deep loss.

Stories like this led The Moyer Foundation to create Camp Erin, a bereavement camp for children and teens who have experienced the death of someone close to them.  I had tears in my eyes as I heard about the comfort and understanding Camp Erin participants find as they build friendships with other children who have gone through a similar season of loss.  You can see a few of these kids in this powerful 60 second video on the foundation’s YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CteEhsGsdmg

The weekend-long Camp Erin experiences are filled with traditional, fun, camp activities combined with grief education and emotional support -- facilitated by grief professionals and trained volunteers. These kids have the opportunity to address their feelings and memorialize their loved ones with other kids just like them.

Incredibly, Camp Erin is free to all campers.  The Moyer Foundation has established 36 of these camps in 23 states making it the largest network of bereavement camps in the United States.  Each Camp Erin is facilitated through a long term partnership with a local bereavement agency.  With the community’s support, The Moyer Foundation intends to raise funds to bring Camp Erin to as many as 60 cities nationwide.

Camp Erin is just one of several unique Moyer Foundation programs.  You can find more inspiring information and ways to support the organization by going to www.moyerfoundation.org.  We at TisBest congratulate The Moyer Foundation on 10 years of bringing comfort and support to children in distress.

Thanks for reading,
Chad Edwards – Charity and Community Relations Manager

Best Nonprofit Startup! We Need Your Vote!

TisBest Philanthropy is honored to be chosen as a finalist in the 2010 edition of the Seattle 2.0 Awards. TisBest was nominated in the Best Nonprofit Startup category. The winner is determined by votes cast, so I encourage you to go to the Seattle 2.0 site and vote for TisBest! The link is http://www.seattle20.com/awards/vote.aspx

According to Seattle 2.0’s website, “Technology startups have been the birthplace of some of the biggest changes in our way of life this century, from how we buy houses to how we manage our family photos, from how we entertain ourselves on the web to how we run our businesses.”

I’d add, “ . . . to how we give meaningful gifts and how we support important charitable causes.”

As technology continues to become an increasingly important part of our lives, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that technology is also playing an increasingly important role in the world of philanthropy. At TisBest, we see ourselves on the cutting edge of philanthropic giving and donor development.

Our vision is to introduce millions and millions of people to the joy of philanthropic giving – one gift at a time. We do it with the TisBest Charity Gift Card. If you’re reading this blog, it’s very likely that you’re a part of our vision!

We’re pleased and proud that one of the world’s centers of technological innovation – Seattle – recognizes the uniqueness and the value of what we’re doing. We’ll continue to create new ways to introduce people to the many worthy causes and tremendous organizations that exist to meet needs around the world.

Thank you for being a part of our success! (And remember to vote.)

Jon Siegel, Executive Director