New October Cause - Finally!



Hello everyone!

It's already been 13 days since October started, and we're just announcing the cause of the month!
We will be raising $200 to donate flocks of geese to Heifer International! We chose geese because they're sustainable sources of income for families in need. Heifer's mission is to "work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth," and we thought donating geese would be super cool! To learn more about our gift, visit here.

Another update: I had a personal visit to World Concern recently, and handed them the $400 donation we had raised in July and August. They loved it, and even interviewed me to be in their blog!

Yahoo Payment Received!

 



The Yahoo payment for the past couple month's search revenue has finally come in! We are now able to send checks off to the two most recent monthly causes. Please check the donations page to see the actual checks!

September - Nothing But Nets!

 



It's early September and guess what that means? School started! It also means that Benelab has almost been in a full year in operation! We thank all our supporters for helping us get to where we are now.

The extended cause last month was a success - we were able to reach the $400 goal, and we are just (still) waiting for the payment from Yahoo (we've got word from them that it should be in by late September) to write off a check to World Concern. We will definitely keep you updated on the payment status, and will immediately update the Donations Page as soon as the payment comes in to our bank account. It really sucks having a donation page that has been unupdated for so long, and we're more than ready to send off those new checks ASAP.

For the September cause, we've found this really cool site called NothingButNets.net that provides insectide-treated mosquito bed nets to areas with high risks of Malaria. We thought this would be a great monthly cause, since it only costs $10 to donate a net overseas. Let's try to donate a total of 20 nets for this month!

July Cause extended!

Hi everyone!
In the midst of waiting to get paid from Yahoo, together with the fact that we have been shy of our $400 goal this past month of July, we thought it would make good sense to expend the "send 5 children to school for a full year" over to August. We have extended causes before, and this helps make sure that the cause in hand is fully funded. Our income from Yahoo has recently been on the low side for some unknown reason, and we are trying to find out the solution as soon as possible.

As for an update on the Yahoo payment status, Caleb, our finance manager, just returned from a mission trip overseas and was able to provide the final numbers for the forms. We should be sending those in very soon, and our payment should come in soon too. Once that's in place, we'll finally be able to send our June check to Changes for New Hope!

Important Public Announcement!

Hello all!

Hope you've been having a great July! By now you've probably noticed that our "amount raised" number hasn't been going up very much recently, and we wanted to let you know all about why that is so.
Some of you are aware of the fact that Benelab was founded last summer by two highschool juniors, Devin and I, and that we raised a total of $1500 of startup capital from family and friends. That number, surprisingly, is at around $400 right now.Why is that so? Well, we've been consistantly donating to our monthly causes for the past ~9 months, but we still haven't been paid by Yahoo! This is why you aren't seeing a June donation check to Changes for A New Hope just yet. Don't worry, though, as the payments from Yahoo are going to be on their way to our bank account very soon. We just wanted to let you know of the situation we're in right now!

So hopefully that will clear up some confusion that may have been caused by the missing June donation check. We'll keep you updated once that is finally made - thanks for your patience!

India Today, L'espresso, oh my!

Long time no press, right?
Well, today I was excited to update the press page with two brand new coverages, both international publications! One of our awesome fans Vilas Pavithran told us about us being in India Today, and I randomly stumbled upon the L'espresso article earlier today. The latter one though, is completely in Italian and I have no idea what it is saying about us. All I recognize is "Benelab.org" and "Jack Kim" haha. More press is coming this summer, so stay tuned on the press page!

July Cause - Sending 5 Children to School!

Hello all!

Sorry it's been so long since the last blog post - we at Benelab have been really busy lately with a new project (coming soon...)! We sincerely apologize for the very bad delay in updating the July cause.

Anyways, we think the new cause this month is pretty cool - we're going to raise $400 to send 5 children to school for a full year through our friends at World Concern! The $400 includes everything from tuition, and books to writing materials.

The reason we chose this cause is that we, especially I, believe that education is a huge stepping stone in coming out of poverty and empowering an individual to achieve more; knowledge instills confidence in a person, and confidence leads to opportunities! As fellow students benefitting by education every day, we truly wish our funds will go towards planting firm foundations in the children (now soon to be students) we will be supporting.

For more information on the specific cause we are supporting and the nonprofit organization World Concern, visit http://globalgiftguide.worldconcern.org/category/education/education-package

Thanks!