Velma Kirksey Tarver spent Tuesday packing up supplies to give out to children in Ethiopia.

“All of the things that we tend to not think much of or even sometimes take for granted.”

Back packs, clothing toys and treats are just some of the things she’s bringing along for the trip.

“Children in third world countries think the world of that kind of stuff.”

Tarver is the founder of the Institute for Global Outreach.  Her goal is helping children in Africa who have the greatest needs.

She says 95 percent of them are orphans and they’ve lost their parents to AIDS.  70 percent of the children are also HIV positive.

“I see HIV as a medical condition, not a death sentence.  Yet sometimes because they are sick, they don’t get the attention they need.”

One of the organization’s partners has a thousand children on their waiting list.

“Without our help I can say with a great bit of certainty that those children wouldn’t be here.”

Right now Tarver is in need of 100 sponsors.  Click here if you’d like to sponsor a child.

“People don’t understand we’re a serious sponsorship program.  Meaning we have their report cards.  We have the children’s profiles, their photos,  they must be in school, they write a letter every year.”

She says her two week trip to Ethiopia isn’t just life changing for the children, but for their sponsors as well.

“People are just amazed at the change in the person that they saw months ago that was sometimes clinging to life and they see that child smiling or happy.  That’s pretty incredible.”