We want to thank you already for your excitement about helping us with the upcoming Cookies’s for a Cause Cookie Exchange fundraiser. Those of you who participated last year, our first year for what will be an annual fundraiser, now seem to understand the idea and heart behind it and its just awesome to see how you all are excited about it. God is so good!

For everyone who isn’t quite sure what this is all about, please allow me to explain…

The 2013 Asha’s Refuge Cookie Exchange, we call “Cookie’s for a Cause”, allows us to team up with volunteers and our supporters to raise awareness about the local and far away refugee situations as well as help us to raise funds to put towards current needs the Non-profit has in order to help continue services to Memphis area refugees. Asha’s Refuge serves mostly refugee women and children who are often in vulnerable and hard situations which make it difficult for them to successfully resettle and make Memphis their new home. Most of our refugee friends have little to no education. It’s surprising but many can not even hold a pencil when they first come to us. Some have disabilities. Most do not speak English. Some are widows or single women with multiple children trying to provide for their family in an unfamiliar culture and survival system. These refugee families seek us out often by word of mouth through their community. Asha’s Refuge wants to first love these families unto Christ and prays we will have opportunities to tell them about the everlasting hope through Jesus as we help to meet their immediate needs.

Cookie’s for a Cause will require us to have lots and lots of donated baked cookies (brownies and other candies are okay too). We need volunteer bakers! Baker’s can sign up to bake cookies by the dozen. Baker’s only need to bake one kind of cookie. We will gather all cookies on the date of the exchange (December 14) and swap them all around to package them into assorted packages.

We need people willing to sell the packages of one dozen plus (probably about 15) homemade baked mystery cookies as they help to raise awareness. These packaged cookies make for a nice gift as well as it helps us to continue raising awareness as the gifts are given out (see sample picture below). We need volunteers willing to work on the day of the actual exchange, December 14, to help package and sort the cookies. If you are willing to help, thank you and please let us know (jamie@ashasrefuge.org).

We very much appreciate your continued support and prayers. May God have his way.