Lifeline Children’s Services, Announces Campaign to Address Global Orphan Crisis

Birmingham-based adoption, foster and orphan care ministry, Lifeline Children’s Services, is inviting kids and their families to raise funds for the global orphan crisis by participating in another summer of Stand for Orphans®, starting July 9, 2020. 

Launched in 2015 by Lifeline Executive Director Herbie Newell’s wife and children, Stand for Orphans® is an annual fundraiser by kids, for kids that has caught national attention and grown to include matching donations and partnerships with organizations like Chris Tomlin’s Angel Armies. 

“A true blessing of serving at Lifeline for the last 17 years has been to see my family and especially my children embrace the call to defend the orphan,” Herbie Newell said. “It humbles me to see their creativity, initiative and passion for taking the Gospel to the vulnerable while also encouraging other kids to do the same through Stand for Orphans®.”

In the last five years, Stand for Orphans® raised over $500,000. 

Participants raise awareness and support for the 153 million orphans in need around the globe by hosting a stand in their community and selling the goods of their choice—lemonade, baked goods, handmade crafts, dog treats, etc. This year, due to COVID-19 restrictions, Lifeline is offering alternatives for families who are unable to host a stand. Additional options include the 2020 Lemon Challenge and Lifeline’s Got Talent. 

For the 2020 Lemon Challenge, children take a video of a willing participant eating a lemon, post it to social media and tag @lifelinechild with #standfororphans and then challenge three friends to eat a lemon and give a donation to Stand for Orphans®. 

For Lifeline’s Got Talent, families can take a video of someone performing his or her talent, post it to social media and tag @lifelinechild along with #standfororphans and then challenge three friends to join the fun by posting their own talent on social media and donating through standforoprhans.org.

Those eager to participate in Stand for Orphans® can sign up at standfororphans.org to receive a free Stand DIY Kit full of downloadable decorations and signs. Participants can also download a media kit of images and captions to use on social media to spread the word to their neighborhood, church and community.  

Creating a lemonade stand is a rite of passage for kids; Stand for Orphans® helps children make a global impact while doing it. 

"As a family, we have spent many hours in orphanages around the world in places like China and Colombia,” Ashley Newell said. “The sights and smells are like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Seeing orphans with my own eyes definitely spurs me to do something for them. It took the simple idea of selling lemonade to bring to fruition what had been stirring in my heart for years—a means of engaging children here at home to do something tangible to help children around the world.”

To learn more about Stand for Orphans®, visit standfororphans.org.

To learn more about Lifeline, visit lifelinechild.org

About Lifeline Children’s Services  
Lifeline Children’s Services’ mission is to equip the Body of Christ to manifest the gospel to vulnerable children. Whether through adoption, foster care, orphan care, or education and counseling, the mission is accomplished when churches begin to live out James 1:27 in their communities and to the ends of the earth. Lifeline assists families with international adoption in all 50 states, each of the U.S. territories and with U.S. citizens living abroad. Lifeline also serves women in unexpected pregnancies and families through domestic adoption. Lifeline trains prospective foster families in AL and SC, engages in family reconciliation throughout the United States, and engages in strategic orphan care in more than a dozen countries. The ministry accepts no state or federal funding.