Christmas Projects – eChange Endeavors

Alternative Christmas Market

November 15th & 16th, Saturday 4-7pm, Sunday 8am-2pm @ O’Donnell Hall, AMC Manhattan Beach, CA

American Martyrs is hosting their annual conscious Christmas Market for meaningful holiday shopping experience, offering a unique opportunity to support fair trade artisans, non-profit initiatives, and socially responsible businesses.

Find beautiful, handcrafted gifts while making a positive impact in the world. Every purchase helps support sustainable livelihoods, empower communities, and promote ethical practices around the globe. Let’s celebrate a season of giving that truly gives back.

eChange Endeavors will have a table offering three wonderful opportunities to support families and missionaries in Uganda!

It is more blessed to give than to receive. Acts 20:35

You can donate to our Christmas Dinner initiative $25 dollars which provides a family of 5 a dinner with meat, sides, soda and Christmas cake or cookies. Bless a family or 2 seniors with unexpected joy this Christmas. Give today! Learn more.

For the Diocese of Lira and YOUFRA (Young Franciscans) Advent Retreat program we are seeking $2,000. This will provide 500 young adults between 25-35 with a 1-day opportunity for prayer, reflection, healing and community across 4 deaneries bringing peace, hope and joy to their Advent journey to Christmas. Give today! Learn More.

Give the gift of education this Christmas and receive a Wearable Blessing bracelet handmade in Uganda.

Support our scholarship program with Ocer Campion Jesuit College, St Joseph College (Franciscan), Children’s Community Care, and YOUFRA. $200 sponsors one high school student’s tuition for a term, $600 covers a full year. Alternatively, $200 supports one primary student for a year with all their personal requirements. We currently support 30 students ranging from primary 5 through university who otherwise would not be attending school. It is our generosity that makes education possible for the students and their families.

If you make a scholarship donation of $200 or higher, we will bless you with a thank you gift of a My Saint My Hero Little Saints bracelet with hand casted metals from Italy and handmade by women in Uganda.

Give today!

Christmas Dinners & Bundles 2025

Our Christmas dinner initiative has been greatly enjoyed both by our giving and receiving families! This year we want to ensure 100 families and more experience the unexpected joy of Christmas! We touch families with special needs children, poor families, elderly, orphans, and individuals with disabilities.

We connect with children through our partners: Children’s Community Care, YOUFRA Youth Centre Lira, YOUFRA Tororo, YOUFRA Disabilities group Soroti, the Xaverians, and St Joseph College Padhola.

A good Christmas in Uganda is to attend Church followed by a dinner feast together. This includes eating meat–beef or goat along with tasty options of rice, matoke (banana), potatoes, and veggies with soda, then enjoying Christmas cake or cookies. The children look forward to this day all year long. Without our support this year’s Christmas dinner will be just another meal of beans and portio (corn meal).

This December we seek to bless 25 families with Christmas dinners, 75 seniors with Christmas bundles, and sponsor 3 Children’s Christmas parties. Will you help break the tedium of poverty and fill their hearts anew with love, hope, and joy this Christmas? Will you give $25 today to help one family or two seniors have a blessed and joyful Christmas dinner?

Donate here!

May God richly bless you and your family this Christmas season for unto us the Christ child is born ever new in our hearts!

Youth Advent Retreat Lira Diocese

The Young Franciscans of Uganda (YOUFRA) in collaboration with the Lira Diocese are hoping to host 1-day Advent retreats for 500 young adults 25-35 years of age across four different deaneries this December. The Lira and Gulu Diocese were adversely affected by the Lord’s Resistance conflict. Over a 10 year period tens of thousands of young boys and girls were abducted and forced to be child soldiers or support them with cooking meals, cultivating crops, or sex. While the war ended 20 years ago the negative after effects linger on in relationships, education, and economic opportunities. The retreat is a time for the young adults to gather in community, listen, forgive, heal, grow in their catholic faith, and deepen their relationship with the Lord. The Lira Diocese (north & central region, see map below) is one of the poorest areas in the country because of the lost decade of violence. This means the people are only able to give minimally to the church for faith based activities.

We are seeking to raise $2,500 to cover the cost of the retreats including a portable speaker & microphone, reusable plates & cups, lunch & tea ($2.50 per person), transport and administration costs for the team. YOUFRA & the Lira Diocese are providing a team of four to prepare and lead the retreats: Fr. Lawrence Ogwang, Carlo Okwada, Sr. Margaret Awor, National Director of YOUFRA, Emilly Wafoyo, YOUFRA Youth Centre Director. Will you help these young adults renew their hearts this Advent season? Will you help bring them peace, hope, joy, and light to their journey to Christmas by sponsoring some or all of the retreats?

Donate Now!

Christmas Dinners & Bundles 2024

Happy Advent Season!

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone. You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing. – Isaiah 9:1-2a

Where are the places in your heart and in your life that you need hope? Where do you need peace? Where do you need joy? Jesus is standing out side knocking on the door of your heart. You just have to let him in! He will cast out the despair, the distress, and the disappointment. If you let Him in, He will transform your heart and life. One way to let Jesus in is to make a good confession before Christmas. Another, is to go to Eucharistic Adoration or daily Mass. May your Advent be blessed by prayer, generosity, and reconciliation so that your heart may be prepared for the fullness of joy come Christmas.

This Christmas we seek to bless 25 families with Christmas dinners, 75 seniors with Christmas bundles, and sponsor 2 Christmas parties for children. A good Christmas for a faith filled Ugandan is attending Mass, eating meat along with tasty options of rice, matoke (banana), and potatoes, with soda and enjoying Christmas cake or cookies. With $25 we can feed a family of 5 or support 2 seniors. Would you help us bless all these families this year? Will you help break the tedium of poverty and help fill their hearts anew with love, hope and joy this Christmas? Give Today!

Thank you, Thank you for your generous hearts! We wish you a very Merry Christmas from all of us at eChange Endeavors, our partners and those we serve in Uganda. Love & blessings, Laura, Founder

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Thank you for your prayers and donations. Together we made a wonderful impact this year!

Thanks to your generous support we helped 13 students complete another year of high school, 2 students start university studying education and medicine, and a dozen primary children with boarding, food, clothing, mattresses, blankets, and medical aid.

We helped YOUFRA train 24 young adults in shoe making, and provided counseling in two different villages for 25 young men and women, former war abductees. We also raised funds to build a chicken house for the Youth Centre in the new year!

We helped sponsor the Xaverian youth program in December that hosted 415 youth from the Kampala Dioceses at Chiro Camping site.

We helped Community Children’s Care and other families with medical issues and emergencies, including a brain injury and Hepatitis C that kept two fathers in their 30s alive. These fathers are beginning to work and provide for their families once again.

Thank you for all the love and charity you have shown these families. We are helping to transform lives, families, the Church in Uganda and the country.

May you all have a blessed and beautiful 2023!!!

Chicken House & Hope for the New Year!

YOUFRA Youth Centre in Lira provides support to former abductees–men and women, in the Lord’s Resistance Army and their children. They under went severe mental and physical hardships while in captivity. 17 years later they are still suffering from lack of education and employment opportunities, mental traumas, and stigmas in the community. Tragically these stigmas are also being passed down to the next generation. The Little Sister of St Fancis through the Young Franciscans of Uganda (YOUFRA) are working to help heal and reconcile the families. One key strategy is providing economic opportunities for the former abductees and educational opportunities for their children.

The Youth Centre is home or boarding to about 15 different children plus a few mothers and staff. To help improve diets and sustainability of the center we want to help them convert this old cow shed (see photos above) into a chicken house. The free range chickens will be more protected from cats and birds and they will be able to acquire laying chickens too. Both eggs and meat will compliment the vegetables and onions from the garden and their main crops (beans & corn), which will greatly improve their health. We are seeking $650 for the chicken house renovation and start-up.

As well, we are seeking $550 for the children for mattresses, sheets, blankets, socks, under wear, soccer balls, jump ropes, puzzles, pack backs and a nice Christmas dinner. Plus extra clothes and shoes for Obed, the boy by himself in photo below, is 12 years old. He was brought to the center when he was 6 years old and left to be cared for by Sr Margaret, LSOSF. Besides a school uniform he possesses only the long sleeve shirt and trousers he is wearing, and one other t-shirt and shorts. He needs basically anything and everything—fleece/sweater, trousers, shirts, shorts, tennis shoes, flipflops/sandals, personal care products, and reading materials.

We have the opportunity to bring renewed hope to these children and their families as we begin a new liturgical year and a new calendar year. Might you be willing to be a Magi to these children bringing your wisdom, prayers, and treasures?

Donate here!

Thank you. May God’s mercy, love and joy abound in your hearts and families this Christmas!!

Christmas Dinners & Bundles 2022

Our Christmas dinner initiative has been greatly enjoyed both our giving and receiving families, we have decided to do it again this year! We have set our goal of 50 Christmas dinners to reach poor families, children, elderly and disabled individuals. Might you give $25 today to help one family or two seniors have a blessed and joyful Christmas?

We connect with families through our partners Children’s Community Care, YOUFRA Youth Centre Lira, YOUFRA Disabilities group Soroti, the Xaverians, St Joseph College, and John Paul II Justice & Peace Youth Leaders.

Economic problems abound in Uganda on the tails of the pandemic, lockdowns, back to back bad harvests, inflation, now Ebola breakouts, and more business closures causing a ripple effect of despair and discouragement acrosss the country. In this season of hope, you can spread God’s love and mercy with a small gift of $25 for one family.

We want 50 families and more to experience the unexpected joy of Christmas this year. Families with special needs children, as well as teachers, students, widows, orphans, and individuals with disabilities.

A good Christmas in Uganda is to attend Church followed by a dinner feast together that includes meat. Children look forward to this day all year long. Without our support this year shall be just another meal of beans and portio (corn meal).

Your gift of $25 will buy 1 chicken (or equivalent beef/goat), plus rice or potatoes, veggies, additional sides, sodas to share, and Christmas cake for a family of four to six. Bundles include rice, meat, sugar, oil and soap.

Will you help us bless 50 families with a Christmas Dinner gift?

We have already received contributions for 30 Christmas Dinners, we just need another 20 to meet our goal!

Donate here!

May God bless you and your family this Christmas season for unto us the Christ child is born ever new in our hearts!