CARDS OF JOY IS A NON PROFIT
COMPANY STARTED BY A
9 YEAR OLD BOY.

Cards of Joy was started by a very enthusiastic 9 year old named Matthew.  Matthew learned   about Haiti at the age of 4 through friends and family members. He has been donating his own money to Haiti ever since. He began making greeting cards and selling them to family and friends.  He than began telling his friends about what he was doing and they asked how they could help. More and more classmates have come on board donating their time and talents to making these heartfelt cards. Last year Matthew partnered with Beyond Borders. Cards of Joy now sells Haitian artisan cards provided by Beyond Borders as well as greeting cards designed by Matt and his friends. He is now 11 years old. Cards of Joy is proof that we all can make a difference!

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MORE ABOUT MATT
 as told by David Diggs of Beyond Borders.

David Diggs of Beyond Boarders wrote: More than anything it was disorienting, the request this nine-year-old boy was making of me.Over the years I’ve had hundreds of Haitian children approach me with this look in their eyes. They needed something and I appeared like a miracle—someone who wouldn’t immediately push them away, who might give them some spare change, who would walk with them down the street to buy them a meal from the open-air restaurant, who would help them buy a pair of used tennis shoes from a street vendor or the schoolbooks their parents couldn’t afford.But this time I wasn’t on a Port-au-Prince street. I was at a private Christian school in a fairly affluent suburb of Washington, DC. I had just made a presentation to an assembly of the three fourth grade classes. These students had organized a Read-a-thon for Literacy to raise funds to help kids who had never had a chance to attend school to get a solid education. I was there to receive the $6,000 they had raised on behalf of Beyond Borders and help them understand the significance of what they had done.The boy who approached me now had been one of the more eager students during the question and answer period. His teacher was trying to herd the class back to the classroom, but this boy had something he needed from me. “Mr. Diggs,” he asked almost reverently, “May I have your autograph?”I’m not a rock star or a star of any kind. I don’t think I’d ever had anyone ask for my autograph before. His request and the way he looked at me might have appealed to my vanity, but I knew that his request said a lot more about him than it did me.“Sure,” I said, trying to contain my astonishment. I didn’t have a photo or a book or any of the other things a real celebrity might have handy to autograph. It took me a minute of fumbling to even find a pen.“And what’s your name?” I asked.“Matt, and I make greeting cards and sell them to raise money for kids in Haiti.”“Wow!” I said, “That’s really wonderful.” Kids approaching me in Haiti were usually driven by some urgent material need. Matt wasn’t facing any material need. But the sense of urgency in him seemed just as powerful. He was, I believe, deeply in touch with a spiritual need we all have—the need to care about the needs of others.While the human needs for air, water, or food are instinctual and announce themselves more forcefully, something in us will slowly die if we don’t heed this other deeply human need. Caring for the needs of others is something we celebrate at Christmas and something rooted in the nature of God.Some classical Greek philosophers envisioned God as some unmoved mover who was worthy of our love and awe, but unmoved by our needs. By contrast, the God revealed in the Old and New Testaments sees us as beloved children. God really feels our pain.The baby Jesus was the physical embodiment of this kind of divine love—love that was both more powerful than any force in nature and yet as defenseless and vulnerable as a baby. Before Matt’s teacher had managed to pull him from our conversation, Matt had gotten my e-mail address and phone number. He soon called me, and I had a chance to talk with his mother and father, too.They told me that Matt began caring about children in Haiti when he was only four years old. That’s when a friend of his family was planning to travel to Haiti to volunteer. Matt was touched by the story and asked his mother to help him get his big Bunny Bank. She agreed but told him that he didn’t need to give everything. He responded by saying that “these children don’t have anything, and I have everything!” The change totaled more than $400.Later Matt decided to start making and selling greeting cards with the help of some of his friends. What they earned went to help Haitian children in need.The Read-a-thon at his school and connection with Beyond Borders came later. Matt was excited to hear that Beyond Borders works with a youth association in  a poor neighborhood in Haiti that also makes and sells greeting cards.As Christmas has approached this year, instead of hounding his parents for video games and other toys for Christmas, Matt has been hounding his father to help build a Web site that will allow his little group to sell both the cards he and his friends make and the cards our friends in Haiti make.That Web site is now up and running. All the funds that are raised through this initiative go to help children we work with in Haiti get a quality education and avoid being sent away into servitude.Matt’s Web site is www.CardsofJoy.org. Cards of Joy is an appropriate name. Not only will the cards bring joy to those who receive them, but they are an expression of the joy that bubbles up in Matt. And, of course, the funds they raise will provide children in Haiti with unimaginable joy of finally being able to attend school. There is so much in our world that can deaden in us our awareness of the needs of others and weaken our capacity to care.We are so grateful that, like Matt, you’ve kept your heart open to the needs of others.The challenges are indeed great in Haiti, but at Christmas we are reminded that we are not alone, that God’s love still takes physical form in the acts of love of ordinary heroes like you and Matt.

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