You Show Me Anthem for Center of Hope

Despite the current climate in the Philippines, We Love Heroes will continue on as planned. Mirta and I have been gathering music supplies to take with us to the Philippines for the girls who apparently love to sing and dance. Here is a recording of the girls singing a song that they wrote together :)   You Show Me

Skoll Foundation Bonus Challenge!

I just noticed that whoever gets that most amount of donations in this week wins their charity $5000! That means we can win the Visayan Forum Foundation an additional $5000 by simply getting as many people as we can to donate. Minimum donation is $10!

What I learned about Cecilia Oebanda

When I first spoke to Lai, Cecilia’s daughter, months ago she let me know a few key things about her mother. The first thing that I learned was that Cecilia was very poor growing up, dumpster diving for essentials. The second thing I learned was that she was a fighter. She took up arms, alongside her husband, against the Marcos regime in the Philippines and eventually was considered such a threat that they pursued her and other insurgents until she finally turned herself in to save the lives of her friends and unborn child. She was imprisoned for four years but continued protesting by engaging the entire prison in hunger strikes. Two of her children were born in captivity.

When she was released and democracy was restored she got a few friends and a couple of backpacks and they started going around advocating fairness for domestic workers. It was this work that opened her eyes to how promise of domestic work abroad was one of the main corridors to human trafficking and the Visayan Forum Foundation was born.

The third and final thing that I learned about Cecilia Oebanda is that she is a servant, dedicating her life to the service of those who need her skills, passion, and courage to stand up for the cause of humanity flourishing. She is a fighter, a servant, and an inspiration in a world that needs it.

Love Bomb Launch!!! THIS IS IT!!!

This is it folks! It's Love Bomb Day! Remember to.

1. Send an email!
2. Donate
3. Spread the Word

See the previous post for all the details or the Heroes and Missions page on our website www.WeLoveHeroes.com

November 6 Love Bomb - Participate! Use 1, 2, or all 3 of these methods!

1. Send an email to Cecilia through her organization at Director@VisayanForum.org

2. Support the Visayan Forum (Cecilia's foundation against human trafficking) in their Skoll Social Enterprise Challenge by donating through We Love Heroes at http://www.crowdrise.com/VisayanForumFoundation/fundraiser/WeLoveHeroes

or 3. Simply "Like" and "Share" about the Visayan Forum from their Facebook page or from ours: //www.facebook.com/VisayanForumFoundation or www.facebook.com/WeLoveHeroesProject

All of our cities have shipped!

Well.... ALMOST all of our cities have shipped! San Diego is scheduled to ship out this coming week, which is great because it coincides nicely with our upcoming LOVE BOMB!

Thank you Melbourne!

We Love Heroes would like to thank the team and volunteers in Melbourne, Australia! Here they are at a baby shower that they used as an opportunity to collect donations for the box. Thank you to Eliza, Tracey, Jodi and a big thank you to Jessica for her generosity and to the Grant family for sponsoring the shipment.

Good Luck San Francisco and Hello Houston!

Our San Francisco coordinator could not complete her mission due to her very pregnant nature! We Love Heroes wishes Lai and her new family well. Good luck with everything!

We Love Heroes also wishes to WELCOME and THANK the Bui family in Houston, Texas, for stepping in and putting together a donation box in less than a week! You guys are awesome!! The box is scheduled to ship out tomorrow. Here's a pic of their baby boy inspecting the donations for approval :D

We Love Heroes has a Love Bomb date!!

For those of you not in the know, the Love Bomb is a mass show of support and encouragement toward our Hero. For this to work, we need everyone we know and everyone that everyone we know knows (read it again slowly!), to participate. Don't worry, this is painless and fun. Tell your kids.

We're going to need everyone we know to show their support by either:
1. Emailing our hero directly with your kind words
2. Donating and leaving a comment on the Social Entrepreneur Challenge: http://www.crowdrise.com/VisayanForumFoundation
3. Liking Visayan Forum on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

ALL ON THE SAME DAY

Stay tuned for the date and more information on how to participate in the Love Bomb!!

The Montreal box has SHIPPED!

A big thank you to everyone who donated. We managed to collect about 200 pieces of clothing, 10 pairs of shoes, backpacks, notebooks, and more. 

New Logo Is In!

The new logo is in everyone! Every aspect of the logo was chosen for what it represents. The Shield: Power, unity, protection, safety, salvation, faith, armour, love, strength. The Upside Down V: Official symbol of Spartan warriors, officially called a lambda. The Star: Five pointed star is an ancient symbol denoting the five elements - Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and HEART. The Cape: Symbol of the hero.

Thanks again to Shabbir C. Services!

Aimons les héros !!!

We Love Heroes is excited to go BILINGUAL!!!
Nous sommes heureuses d'annoncer l'arrivée de notre site en français. Le site n'est pas encore terminé et nous avons besoin de vos suggestions. D'après vous, qu'elle est la meilleure façon de traduire: Are Heroes Born? Are Heroes Made? Or are they Decided.

Soyez créatifs !

Écrivez vos suggestions dans les commentaires. Merci! - Che + Mirta

Loco for Logos!

I am ridiculously excited to have a logo. I mean, ridiculously. It is going to be AWESOME. I want to put it on everything. I’m going to tattoo it on my eyelids. When we first decided that we needed a logo to unite the cause, we put out our feelers in search of graphic artists who would be willing to donate. Designing and creating a logo is time consuming so I didn’t know what to expect about our chances of finding someone yet I was still surprised at some of the feedback I got. Most people didn’t respond. One guy responded saying it would be tough to find someone to donate a logo and that most designers are freelancers “who could use the money a logo would pay.” I felt soooo guilty! A logo seems a frivolous thing, like a designer pattern that you just have to have. We didn’t NEED a logo to make this project take flight. If we wanted one, we should pay for it. It was extraneous, superfluous, nice to have but at the end of the day totally unnecessary to move this thing forward, so why should someone develop one for free when most of us can use the extra cash ourselves?

But is it unnecessary??? This is not a “me” thing anymore. This is a “we” thing now. It’s “WE Love Heroes” not “ME Love Heroes.” We’ve got 9 core people involved donating their time, energy, and resources to a cause greater than themselves, not to mention the legions of others donating their goods. Logos have the power to unite.  Symbols have the ability to encompass in one glance hopes, ideas, and beliefs. They can be a declaration of what you stand for.

Artists have one of the greatest abilities to give.

So, the search continued and someone answered! Our logo is generously being donated by Shabbir C. Services who has given of his time and heart to support us as we support others. We had a great idea and concept meeting where words like “hero, courage, action, movement, awesomeness” were bandied around. I’m very excited to see what he comes up with. He has involved other designers and someone who is a huge comic book fan (like myself, mental high-five fellow nerd) to give their two cents and once again, the generosity and joy of coming together for a common goal never ceases to astound me.

So thanks again to Shabbir C. Services for all your help. We can’t wait!

- Che

Participating Coordinators and Cities!!

The numbers are in and we have our official roster of coordinators and cities that will be participating in Mission Double "Oh Cecilia!" Check out our website for more details!

Version One Really Is Better Than Version None

I have been sitting here in front of the computer for MONTHS now sweating over what to say and how to “blog” and worrying over the right way or the wrong way. But honesty has always been my best policy so I’m gonna give it to you straight: I really don’t know what I’m doing. The We Love Heroes project started out as a small project for one and has snowballed into something much bigger than I ever dreamt possible. I have created a monster: A beautiful, empathetic, loving, and ever so slightly inebriated monster. I am astonished at the willingness of people to give and I am astounded by my own astonishment. People are just dying to give of themselves… they’re downright eager to find an outlet in which to express the undeniable human urge to contribute. - Che

They care! They really, really care!

Amazingness! 3 other cities have joined in on our little mission. Welcome San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Toronto!!

Head Hunting!

The current mission will be to support Cecilia Oebanda in her quest to abolish modern day slavery. The goal is to get one box of clothes to donate to the rescued women who stay at the Visayan Forum's halfway house in Manila from at least 3 different cities around the world. So far, we have coordinators in Montreal, San Diego, and Melbourne and the search continues!