IMG Announces 2020 Leave Your Mark Contest Winners

International Medical Group® (IMG®), an award-winning global insurance benefits and assistance services company, is excited to announce Made in the Streets and Filter of Hope as the winners of the fourth annual Leave Your Mark essay contest. Both organizations will receive $5,000 from IMG to use towards their global outreach efforts.

To enter IMG's Leave Your Mark contest, mission and social good organizations around the world were asked to respond to the question: How is your organization working to overcome the current obstacles impacting the world? If your organization were to win, how would $5,000 support your continued global outreach efforts?

The first winner, Filter of Hope, is an organization that strives to provide solutions for the many countries around the world still struggling to obtain clean drinking water. Filter of Hope’s hollow fiber membrane water filters give families up to 250 gallons of bacteria-free water daily for 10 years. For context, the average American shower averages around 17 gallons of water.

With IMG’s Leave Your Mark award, Filter of Hope can provide 5,130 water filters to communities in Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, and Guatemala through their Living Water Project. 

“Over the past several years, our primary ministry model has been hosting mission trips in 10 different Latin American countries. These trips are currently on hold because of COVID-19, so we have developed the Living Water project to send filters directly to our in-country church partners. Our partners will then train volunteers to install the filters and share their faith in places too remote to send teams.” said Jerry McCall, Ministry Coordinator of Filter of Hope.

IMG's second Leave Your Mark winner, Made in the Streets (MITS), specializes in meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the children from the streets of Nairobi, Kenya. It’s mission is comprised of three parts: building relationships and hosting feeding programs for street kids in the Eastleigh neighborhood, recruiting kids to join the boarding school where they will receive educational and vocational training, and sending graduates back into the world as community leaders and forces for good.

“COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of the MITS mission, while also bringing new challenges,” said Christian Yoder, Administrative Coordinator for Made in the Streets. “In the height of the lockdown, the Kenyan government forced all non-profit feeding programs to close. MITS went from feeding hundreds of street children and young mothers each week to feeding none – overnight. After negotiating with local area leaders, MITS was given permission to open our drop-in center twice a week and hand out meals to hungry kids. MITS can safely provide nutritious meals with enough daily calories to street kids and families, but the number of kids looking for a meal each day continues to rise.”

The award from IMG’s Leave Your Mark essay contest will feed approximately 1,000 kids fighting to survive on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya

"In the midst of this global pandemic, IMG has not forgotten the many mission and social good organizations around the world that are continuing to work tirelessly through new and uncharted challenges to create positive, global impacts.” said Amanda Winkle, Chief Commercial Officer at IMG.  “We are thrilled to recognize both Filter of Hope and Made in the Streets with the Leave Your Mark award.”

IMG has insured mission and social good organizations since the early 1990’s, providing key benefits and assistance services each year for thousands of members who travel or live internationally with the purpose of serving others. The company launched its Leave Your Mark essay contest in June 1, 2017, as a way to give back to organizations serving charitable missions.

About International Medical Group (IMG)
International Medical Group® (IMG®), a Sirius Group company, is an award-winning global insurance benefits and assistance services company that has served millions of members worldwide since its founding in 1990. A leader in the global benefits and assistance services industry, IMG offers a full line of international medical insurance products, as well as travel insurance plans, medical management services, and 24/7 emergency medical and travel assistance. For more information, please visit www.imglobal.com.

About Made in the Streets (MITS)
For 25 years, MITS has existed to provide love, education, and job training to young people living on the streets of Narobi, Kenya. MITS is a growing nonprofit organization with a clear message: we stand for street kids around the world. We make use of mass communication channels such as social media, email, and others to share education, encouragement, and to mobilize our audience to get involved.

About Filter of Hope
Filter of Hope changes lives and creates hope by providing clean drinking water and sharing the “living water” of Jesus Christ with families worldwide. Filter of Hope wants to see life transformation in the lives of families living in spiritualty and physical poverty by sharing god’s love and providing access to clean water, education and jobs.