Chase Community Giving is awarding $1 million to the charity that receives the most votes on Facebook.Here's a story from the Dallas Morning News about a Texan who raising funds for people with HIV in Africa:
In Africa, five dollars can do an overwhelming amount of good, Jeff Lakusta says. It can save a life. It can provide hope.
So the Flower Mound resident only imagines how many people he could help if he could score $1 million.
That’s why Lakusta wants to be a Facebook millionaire.
Lakusta formed the Eyes on Africa Foundation, which helps orphanages and people infected with HIV. His group is among 100 charities competing for a $1 million prize on Facebook in the national Chase Community Giving contest. Starting Jan. 15, Facebook users can vote for their favorite charity.
Lakusta, a 22-year-old college student at Notre Dame, hopes to inspire other young people to volunteer for his group or other worthy causes. A research trip to South Africa in 2007 sparked his quest to help Africans. As he studied how stigma affects treatment of HIV patients, he saw extreme poverty and children suffering. He wanted to do something.
"We always think we’re too young to do something in this world and we don’t know how to do it,” Lakusta said. "You’re not born knowing how to make a difference. We’re as ready as we’re ever going to be to make a difference in the world.”
Eyes on Africa has already received $25,000 for being one of the finalists in the Facebook competition, and Lakusta will use that money to help African community organizations that work with his group to assist the poor and the sick. Each year, Lakusta and other group members travel to Africa to volunteer for these groups.
That includes Etafeni, a center near Cape Town, South Africa, that helps children and their caregivers who are HIV-positive or at risk of getting the virus. The agency provides day care, job training and counseling.
During one Africa visit, Eyes on Africa members converted a trailer into a mobile testing unit that now allows nurses to go into the community to conduct private HIV and tuberculosis tests. The number of people getting tested increased by 700 percent, Lakusta said.
This summer, Eyes on Africa members plan to help replicate Etafeni in another community. Lakusta and others plan to bring in water and electricity to the site.
Pairing volunteers’ time with donations is key, he said.
"You don’t want to just throw money at a project,” Lakusta said. "You want to start something sustainable and help a community out of its crisis.”
For the $1 million prize, Lakusta’s group is competing with organizations that support war veterans, the homeless, the arts, as well as families and children with autism, muscular dystrophy, cancer and other medical issues.
Lakusta has been spreading the word about the Facebook competition on — you guessed it — Facebook.
"We have a solid base of people who are on Facebook all the time,” he said. "If we can mobilize and invigorate them, we think we have a good shot.”
In 2007, during his trip to South Africa, he saw so-called orphan families – groups that are headed by kids who bottle-feed infants and find shelter for other orphaned children. He met with women who were HIV positive. One told him, "Every time I get raped I try to make sure they use a condom.”
After returning from the trip, Lakusta felt compelled to help, so he formed Eyes on Africa. He’s recruited students at colleges across the country — and a few around the world — to help raise money and awareness. Since 2007, they’ve donated more than $30,000 to the African groups.
"We’re luckier than a huge portion of the rest of the world,” he said. "There’s a responsibility to make a difference to people who weren’t born in the same circumstance. ... I can help and make a small bit of difference.”
