The Hope Alliance was started by Park City locals more than13 years ago with the mission of empowering people in Third World countries to create positive change. Due to the non-profit’s close ties to the community, the board recently decided to relocate from Salt Lake City to Park City and bring a multitude of fundraisers and outreach opportunities with them.
Hope Alliance Executive Director Melissa Caffey said they already have multiple events planned in Park City in the upcoming months to help the community become more reacquainted with the organization.
“We originally got our start in Park City before we relocated to Salt Lake City about 10 years ago,” Caffey said. “But most of our board members lived up here, and it just made so much more sense for us to be here. So many of our volunteers live in Park City and we want to grow more local awareness. We felt like we fell off the Park City radar.”
According to Caffey, what sets Hope Alliance apart from other non-profits is itsdesire to help those who want to be helped, and teach them how to help themselves.
“We want our humanitarian missions to be sustainable,” she said. “We learned that if you build a village a well, but don’t have them put any sweat equity into it or teach them how to maintain it, it won’t do them any good. We recently taught midwife training in Guatemala so the residents could serve one another.”
Hope Alliance volunteers also make frequent trips to Haiti where they have established an orphanage for girls. During the most recent trip, volunteers asked all the girls to draw pictures that will be displayed at the Kimball Art Center in September.
“I saw this photograph of a little girl holding a beautiful drawing and she has this huge smile on her face,” Caffey said. “She seems so happy and normal but just a few months before she was living alone on the streets, suffering from countless medical problems and recovering from assaults.”
The Hope Alliance will hold its annual Golf 4 Hope Tournament on Aug. 13 at the Jeremy Ranch Country Club to raise money for upcoming projects. On Sept. 15, the organization will host a global health seminar at Westminster College. The seminar will focus on turning good intentions into effective programs to mitigate the unintended consequences global non-profits can have on Third World countries.
The upcoming events are just a few examples of what Caffey wants to bring to the community, hopefully attracting more volunteers along the way.
“We want to have more ties to the community, we already have great partnerships with Park City Rotary, Sunrise Rotary, but we would love to do even more to involve local citizens,” she said.
For more information visit www.thehopealliance.org .