My friends, Stevi and Matt Savage started a wonderful new nonprofit called Photo Serve. It is a wonderful organziation bringing together photographers who willingly will volunteer for those in need. They will be traveling to Casas Por Cristos in Acuna, Mexico in September with guest mentor, Mike Colon, and will be building a home for a family in great need. I am so proud of my friends for getting together and starting an organization that shows how we can give back. And what a great way for photographers to document people helping people but also to be able to network and learn from each other.
To register and read more about this trip from September 25th-30th please go this link on their site. I can not attend this time around but for sure will be joining them the next time they organize a trip.
Their Mission is as follows:
With the utmost respect and sensitivity to our fellow neighbors, our goal is to capture and define what “SERVE” means. Above everything else, the mission is not about you, not about me, not about our organization, and not about the organizations we pair with. It’s about the people being served through the organizations we partner with.
All photography and video is taken with the intention of telling their stories, motivating others to give financially, act accordingly, and volunteer willingly. Participants gain real perspective of the dichotomy that exists between the first and third world life, the privileged and the disenfranchised, the embraced and the abandoned. It is their lives that we serve. It is there story that we tell. Not for our benefit, but for theirs.
We offer an opportunity for photographers to join and share in the ultimate gift of service, while sharing this experience with the rest of us through their photographic skills. For each servant, partnership trips become a round-table opportunity to share skills, emotions, feelings, encouragement, guidance, wisdom, and teaching.
While photographers will ultimately grow in knowledge and skill, it is a side effect more than the purpose. We believe in maintaining and restoring the dignity of all human life. There exists no hierarchy of social classes or life value.
