Today is Friday, August 20th, and so our Justice Friday post today comes from day 20 in the 30 day prayer and action guide. Todays post is about Eugene Cho, pastor of Quest and founder of One Days Wages. Alright, that is enough links for this post, not on to Eugene and Minhee Cho’s story which comes from the One Day’s Wages site.
We’re and “average family.” We live in Seattle. We fell in love and married in 1997 and have three young children. We’re neither poor nor rich; simply a middle class family with privilege because we know that we have so many opportunities that many in the world do not have.
We’ve always known of the disparity in the world; always knew the statistics. In fact, we’ve memorized them and know the numbers by heart. But it was traveling to a few places and seeing with our own eyes the faces, stories, children, and families behind the numbers that “wrecked” our lives. It was seeing organizations and women, men, and children do amazing work to uplift themselves our of poverty- if only give respect, dignity, and opportunities. It’s by far more complex, but it’s also very simple.
It shouldn’t be this way and doesn’t have to be this way. We have the capacity to end extreme global poverty.
These are some of the reasons that compelled us to take a step further, make some life decisions and start One Day’s Wages (ODW). We made a decision to donate our 2009 income ($68,000) to the cause of fighting extreme global poverty. But we didn’t want to stop there. We also wanted to invite our family, friends, and the rest of the world to consider donating just their “one days wages” and be part of this international grassroots movement. And then to renew that pledge monthly, quarterly, or at least yearly, on their birthdays.
While we’ve received our share of questions and criticisms, we decided to make our donation public not because we wanted attention or pats on our back but to let people know that we are not asking others to do something we aren’t willing to do our ourselves. (this insert is my own, Phils. I am super psyched that you put your income and donation out there Eugene and Minhee, way inspiring.)
Over the next five years, our pledge is to donate and additional one months salary to organizations through ODW to honor our initial public pledge of $100,000.
Money isn’t the solution- or at least not by itself. The greatest resources are people. One voice matters. Our donations do make an impact when invested properly through organizations that are transparent, efficient and strategic in not creating dependency but rather, creating opportunities and empowerment. Our pledge is that of 100% of all your donations go directly to projects and organizations doing amazing work to fight global poverty. Your donation doesn’t have to be through ODW… we don’t care. We just want to remind you that you can make a difference.
This is a long post, but I believe in Eugene and ODW. Please don’t just read this, but stop over to ODW, use the wage generator and donate a day’s wages to help global extreme poverty. Cheers.
