Dear DeafHope Voters,

DEAFHOPE THANKS YOU!!

Thank you so much for your 2200+ Chase Community Giving votes for DeafHope!  DeafHope made it as one of the 100 top charities and each of your votes helped!  Thanks to your vote, DeafHope will receive $25,000 and is now eligible for the 2nd round campaign which will award five organizations $100,000 and ONE TOP organization will receive $1 MILLION DOLLARS!!  This whole campaign has been a beautiful example of how one person with one vote can make a huge difference.  The best part of the first round voting was that we received WONDERFUL support from other nonprofit organizations such as ADWAS, ASLfx, WRAD, NorCal, DCARA, NAD, CAD, California School for the Deaf, and DeafVision Media just to name a few.  It was also an amazing experience to stay up late with several of the voters helping to find more votes which I called “voting it forward for DeafHope”.  Through this experience, I realized that the Deaf community can create miracles by discovering a common thread within all of us.  That is the desire to stop domestic and sexual violence EVERYWHERE!! 

CHASE COMMUNITY GIVING SECOND ROUND PROCEDURE
On January 8th, all 100 charities will upload their Big Ideas proposals outlining what they plan to do with the $100,000 if they win. This will be to get votes for the 2nd round. During this 2nd round, you all will only have ONE WEEK to vote instead of one month like we did during the first round.  On January 15th, the voting starts and the voting closes on January 22nd. DeafHope staff, Board, volunteers and supporters are currently brainstorming our Big Idea proposal. We will keep you posted!

THE IMPACT OF YOUR VOTE!
Furthermore, your vote for DeafHope shows that you care about the survivors of domestic and sexual violence and the victims who did not survive.  Recently, I was deeply saddened to learn while we were pushing to make changes for Deaf survivors with this Chase campaign, a deaf woman was brutally murdered by her live-in beau in Queens, New York.  This is a grim reminder that there is so much more work to do to eradicate violence against women.  Deaf women have drastically less resources and access to safety from domestic and sexual violence than their hearing peers which greatly increases their risk for fatality. One example of limited resources is lack of accessible shelters and transitional homes for abused Deaf Women. DeafHope has a goal to build California’s first shelter/transitional home for Deaf women called “Door To Hope”.  It will be only the second of it’s kind in the entire nation. 

BE ON THE LOOK OUT FOR 2nd ROUND
Domestic and sexual violence happens to anyone, men or women.  However, a higher number of women are murdered by their partners.  With YOUR vote in this campaign, we can create changes by winning $1,000,000 to start building the “Door to Hope” center for Deaf women and their children. This will create a nonviolent place to live.  Be on the lookout for our BIG IDEA presentation for Deaf survivors of domestic and sexual violence. We will post this information on our website at http://www.deaf-hope.org and on our Facebook Chase and our Facebook Cause pages. For more information about Chase Community Giving, see the following -

http://investor.shareholder.com/JPMorganChase/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=430809

Once again, THANK YOU FOR VOTE AND “VOTE IT FORWARD FOR DEAFHOPE!”

Julie Rems-Smario, Executive Director