THON might be over, but the charitable spirit among Penn Staters isn’t.

The Venezuelan Student Organization (VSO), in partnership with Un Par Por Un Sueño at Penn State, is raising funds to fight food insecurity among kids in Venezuela.

VSO is an organization for Venezuelan students at Penn State that provides social and educational events for its members. One of the projects that it’s working on this year is Proyecto Salvavidas, “Project Save Lives” in English, which is one of the projects created by Un Par Por Un Sueño, “a Pair For a Dream” in English. 

In this project, VSO donates $28 every month to a Venezuelan child to provide them with food for the whole month. 

“Our kid that we have under VSO is Moises, and every day he is eating based on the $28 that we send per month. So we do social events to collect money and send him money,” Oren Ben Levy, a member of the Venezuelan Student Organization, said. 

Proyecto Salvavidas is pretty simple. Basically, the idea is to literally save lives. People can go to the website to sponsor unprivileged children. On the website of the project, you can donate $28 a month to provide food for the kids. There, you can see on your profile and the name of the kid you were assigned. The kids range in age, going from 1.5 years old up through 16 or 17. Sponsors also get videos every month with updates about the kid.

The VSO’s involvement with the project started with an old friendship. Ethan Fincheltub and Penn State students Alberto Toledano and Aharon Sarshalom went to the same high school. In college, both Toledano and Sarshalom joined VSO. 

“About a year ago we heard from Ethan that his organization was opening some chapters across the United States. We saw the great work they were doing, and we thought that would be a good idea for us, as Venezuelans, to open this organization here at Penn State,” Toledano, president of the Un Par Por Un Sueño branch at Penn State said.  “We thought we were doing a lot of things through the Venezuelan Student Organization, but we wanted to do more.”

The involvement went beyond just a friendship. For them, helping the children meant giving back to their community. 

“Ethan was doing this great project with just a little bit of money that wouldn’t change much here but could make a whole difference for these kids,” Sarshalom said. “For us, the project is really important because we are giving a little bit back to our country and we’re helping these little kids that need help. I was the co-founder alongside Alberto for the Un Par Por un Sueño club. Alberto is the president now.”

For them, the best part of the collaboration is seeing that the money they are investing actually makes a difference. In the videos they receive each month, their sponsored kid talked about the most special day in his life, which was his birthday. In another video, there was an update of what they did for Christmas. VSO also received an introduction video describing the sponsored kids and wishing happy holidays.

“It’s been very difficult for the kids and their families in the past few years,” Ben Levy said. “When you meet the kids and you see the video, it seems much more personal than donating to many other organizations. You see where your money is going and how it’s affecting the kid. So if you want to help and donate, that’s your way.”

People who collaborate with the project also can communicate with the sponsored child and send extra gifts. 

“One of the kids, for example, said in a video that his dream was to go to el Pico Bolívar, which is a mountain in Venezuela very known all over the world,” Fincheltub, the organizer of Proyecto Salvavidas, said. “The sponsor contacted us and told us that she wanted to pay for him to go on the trip.”

To the members of the VSO and Un Par Por Un Sueño at Penn State, this is a way of helping without spending too much money. While in the United States, $28 might not be enough to feed a child for a month. But it can mean the world in Venezuela due to different purchasing power and currency differences.

Fincheltub said that while in the U.S. one can spend the same money in one meal, in Venezuela, with the same amount, you could feed a child for a whole month. He added it has the potential to change their life. 

“You can do a lot with very little,” Fincheltub said. “You can have an idea of their situation if you understand that the minimum wage, the wage that 80% of the Venezuelan people earns now a day is less than $1 a month. A bunch of kids are starving, they have nothing to eat, and we did this project as a way to give people all over the world to help these kids in Venezuela.”

VSO and Un Par Por Un Sueño at Penn State work together to fundraise for the project. Before the pandemic, they used to be able to do more activities. Not only their members donated, but they also sold Venezuelan food.

The VSO also used to do social events where people paid an entrance fee to play games and have fun, and the money was donated to the children, but it’s been on pause since the coronavirus pandemic began. 

“Lately, since everything is online it has been really difficult to fundraise,” Sarshalom said. “We have managed to do some fundraisers online that brought a lot of donations and we’re just giving it back.”

Still, the clubs are confident of the importance of their work. They are always looking for donations and for people that want to help. Any Penn State Student can join Un Par Por Un Sueño and donate. 

“If you want to help but don’t want the commitment of sending $28 a month because I get it. We’re in college, we’re college students and some people can’t afford to do that. You can just contact us and we’ll use whatever you can give to help the kids,” Sarshalom said. 

If you are interested in joining, send an email to [email protected].