Marie is a mother of three and a widow living in the Androy region of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa. She struggled to support her family for many years with farming, but only earned 75 cents a day — an amount you can imagine wasn’t enough to feed her family.

Marie explains, “In the lean season, we ate only once a day — at night. During the day, we had only mangoes and cactus fruit as substitutes for meals.”

Marie’s options expanded once she began participating in a CARE-supported farmers’ association and exercised her right to 25 acres of her family’s farm. Now, she feeds her children three meals a day. Marie also earns as much as $5 a day at the market by selling the wider variety of crops she learned to grow.

You can help mothers like Marie improve their skills, feed their families and earn their way out of poverty by making a tax-deductible gift today.

Here are some ways your support can make a difference:

• $56 can give 7 women like Marie seed packets to start their own garden and increase their family’s income.
• $92 can supply 2 women like Dedicaciona in Peru with garden tool kits — including a spade, watering can and more — to cultivate their crops.
• $150 can provide a woman like Farida in Bangladesh with a soil testing kit so that she can improve her harvest and help her community.

Please remember, a gift to CARE goes beyond tangible goods. Our comprehensive programs inspire confidence and bring hope to poor girls and women so that they can chart their way out of poverty for good.

Marie says, “I have many goals I want to achieve in the future. I want to improve my family’s lives and save for my children.”

You are one of the keys that can help unlock Marie’s dreams. Please don’t delay making your tax-deductible gift — and help women like Marie, their families and their communities experience powerful new beginnings in 2011.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH
President and CEO, CARE