111. ‘Lifting Hands International’ and Providing Humanitarian Aid to Refugees at Home and Abroad (with Founder and CEO Hayley Smith)

In this powerful episode I sit down with Hayley Smith, founder and CEO of Lifting Hands International, a nonprofit dedicated to providing meaningful, needs-based aid to refugees around the world.

Hayley shares the eye-opening story of how a two-week volunteer trip to Greece opened her eyes to the realities of the global refugee crisis and inspired her to begin an organization that now supports displaced families in multiple countries. From chaotic camps in Greece to community-centered livestock programs in Jordan, Hayley takes us inside the world of humanitarian work, refugee support, and what it truly means to offer help in ways that actually matter.

Listeners will learn:
 ✨ Why listening is the foundation of effective service and humanitarian aid
✨ How Lifting Hands International provides aid refugees actually ask for—including goats, hygiene kits, community support, and local resources
✨ Simple ways anyone can help—from volunteering locally to becoming a small monthly donor
✨ What most people misunderstand about nonprofit work, refugee needs, and humanitarian response

This conversation is both educational and deeply inspiring, offering real-world insight into how ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference—right where they are.

If you’re passionate about service, volunteering, nonprofits, refugee aid, or finding meaningful ways to give back, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Links mentioned in the episode:

Lifting Hands International Website

Lifting Hands International Instagram

Lifting Hands International Facebook

Lifting Hands International in The Giving Machines

Follow the podcast on social media:

Do Something More Instagram

Do Something More Facebook

Do Something More YouTube

Transcript

Melissa: This episode of the podcast features the nonprofit Lifting Hands International.

And I not only loved learning about the good work they do to help lift refugees all around the world,

but also the story of the founder and CEO Hailey Smith, and how she went about beginning this nonprofit is both eye opening, inspiring and I think it's good for us all to be informed about the work and the things that go behind doing this kind of humanitarian work.

So be educated in this episode, but also be inspired on how you can help and get involved.

Welcome to the Do Something More podcast,

the show all about service where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more.

If you're passionate about nonprofits or looking for simple ways to volunteer and give back to the causes that matter to you,

this is the podcast podcast for you.

I'm your host, Melissa Draper.

Stick around and I'll show you all the many ways anyone can truly make a difference in our world today.

Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today I am featuring the nonprofit organization Lifting Hands International.

And I wanted to feature another organization like this because I think it's very important in our society today to be realize these organizations that we can support and help because some of the aid and support that they've had before has not been there.

So Lifting Hands International provides aid to refugees at home and abroad.

That's the simple explanation. But I'm going to let our guest get into more of how they began and the basics of what they do. So I want to welcome to the podcast the founder and CEO of Lifting Hands International,

Hayley Smith.

Hayley: Hey, nice to be here.

Melissa: Well, let's just start off, Hayley, why don't you give us a quick introduction of yourself and then you have a great story for how you started Lifting Hands International so we can get into that as well.

Hayley: Yeah, totally. I'm happy to share my story.

I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas,

and I'm the youngest of five.

It was fantastic growing up there. I loved growing up there. My parents were both born in Salt Lake,

but ended up in El Paso.

I'm the youngest of five.

I really loved growing up in El Paso because there was just this warmth. The Hispanic culture is just so open and warm and hospitable. And I think being on the border as well really opened my eyes very early on to disparity,

disparity between the U.S.

mexico and any other country. And as a child,

it made absolutely no sense that when you drive on i10 and you go around the mountain in El Paso and you overlook Juarez, Mexico, you just see a lot of poverty,

lack of infrastructure, and it's just this striking difference. You look on the right, and it's El Paso. You look on the left, and it's just this. These poorer neighborhoods with dirt streets and.

Right. As a child, I just. It made no sense. And to this day, it still makes no sense. Why there's disparity.

I know there are explanations, but it just never felt right.

And I think from that experience and just being exposed to that and being exposed to borders and kind of arbitrary rules around borders and who's allowed in and who's not and that, like, okay, so some criminals might get in, but the.

The idea of labeling everyone criminals is just insane to me. Like. Right. So I had that exposure,

and I went off to BYU for my undergrad, which is a totally different world.

I adjusted eventually.

I studied English literature there. And then my last year, I wanted to take a language for various reasons. I was. I needed to have a few more credits. I'd also just felt really curious about different cultures.

I was going through a hard time too, and I felt like it would just help give me some structure and something to achieve while I was in the depths of despair my senior year.

And I took Arabic 101, and I absolutely fell in love with the language. I taught myself the Alphabet over Christmas break and then took Arabic 101 starting in January,

and then did this really fast track minor where I spent some time in Morocco living with a family. And then from there, it just totally changed the trajectory of my life.

I suddenly knew what I wanted to do,

and I.

I knew I wanted to work in the Middle east or with the Arab people.

And so I got a master's degree at the University of London in Middle Eastern studies and had the best time. It was just a really wonderful time to be there.

A lot of my best friends are.

I met a lot of my current best friends during my time in London.

Then I spent some time. I lived in Cairo for a bit and then moved back to the state. I became an Arabic teacher at a high school in Boston. Public schools, which was a wonderful job.

And then. Yeah. And then I started lhi. But in between, that is. Is quite the story.

So I, I.

Melissa: It's amazing. It all started with learning a language. Anyway.

Hayley: That.

Melissa: That's amazing itself.

Hayley: Yeah. And it's. Yeah. Learning Arabic was so cool. You like.

It is intimidating when you look at it because it's like squiggles all the squiggly lines. And I mean, what the reason it's squiggly. It's because it's cursive.

It's 28 distinct letters.

Each has a very distinct sound. It's actually quite easy to learn how to read and write the sounds.

Learning how to speak and learning the dialects, that's another story.

But yeah, having spent time in the Arab world, I just felt it reminded me of El Paso.

The warmth, the hospitality, the instant feeling of family,

being welcomed by people even though you're different and being invited to homes and they open up their homes to you and feed you. And they're so grateful that I was.

They're just so grateful that I was learning their language and learning about their religion. I memorized some of the Quran and that was like my party trick was like, hey guys, I know that Al Fatiha.

And like, what?

So I'd recited and it was just this beautiful bonding. And yeah, I think also post.

Post 9 11, this was like 2007, 2, 2006, 2007. So it's still a little fresh where there was still quite a bit of fear of Muslims, fear of, of Arabs.

And I just living there, traveling there, meeting people,

they're just the salt of the earth. They're wonderful people. Of course there's tricky politics, but that's kind of everywhere. And I've learned that more and more as I've been in this career is there are really nasty, weird politics everywhere, so.

Melissa: Right. But good people everywhere too.

Hayley: Exactly.

Melissa: Moving forward.

Hayley: Yeah. So I always tell people, like, my faith in humanity has been absolutely destroyed, but also absolutely restored.

So it's the highs and lows and the,

yeah, the discrepancy that you see a lot in humanitarian work is the worst of people and, and the best of people. So how I got started as. Yeah, as I was telling you about my education, I didn't study business.

I was studying literature and language and film even. And I'm very much of a creative thinker.

Not super organized. I love thinking out of the box. I love brainstorming, I love ideas. I love being out in the world.

But like,

things that require close attention and, and being very detail oriented, that's. That's harder. And so when, when I tell people, I'm like, oh, I'm the founder and CEO of organization.

Every time I say that, my mind's like, like, how.

How did this happen? I don't know, but how it actually got started. I had just finished up my time as a teacher.

Shout out to teachers out there. I loved it, but it was a lot of work. I was burning out. I Was teaching multiple levels, multiple subjects. Just couldn't hack it.

I. I decided to move to Arizona to be closer to family.

And I did this whole. Like, this was in my. I think I was 30 or 31. I did the whole, like, I'm gonna buy a townhouse. I'm gonna buy a dog.

I'm gonna settle. I'm going to.

I'm gonna. Yeah,

I just need this easy, chill life. And then within a few months, I was like, what have I done?

Love.

I loved being closer to family. But it was. It was definitely an adjustment from the east coast and then previous London. And it turns out that I'm not. I'm not built to be just, you know, living in the suburbs, and that's just not me.

So within a couple of months, I was. I was working a desk job, and I just had a lot of extra time, and I had a lot of investment in the Arab world.

I was reading a lot, reading the news, trying to practice my Arabic a little bit. And so I got really sucked into the Syrian civil war and what's happening in isis.

And in Arabic, it's Daesh.

So I was just reading in Arabic and English and, like, what is happening?

And then seeing the Syrian refugee crisis and the exodus and the calls for volunteers, and it just. I mean, it just made sense for me to take a couple of weeks off work and go over to Greece to help out.

I thought I knew I was getting into.

So I tell people this story, too, because I've been trying to make sense of why I walked into this situation in Greece so naively. But I think it's because as a child of the 90s,

born in the 80s, but a child of the 90s,

I remember distinctly the Yugoslav wars. I was kind of absorbed by it, and it was on the news, and I was just. You know, I was young, and I was trying to figure out what was going on.

Why is this happening? And then just the news footage of UN tents and UN Jeeps, it's like, I can. I'm still in the family room watching that footage. So my young mind decided that if there is a humanitarian crisis,

people are taken care of because of these logos. Like, there is a response. They're there to help.

That's what the UN's for, which it is.

And so when I,

you know, Fast forward to 2015, when I'm going to Greece,

I walked into this absolute mess. And it was chaos, and it was shocking,

and it was embarrassing because I had done everything wrong.

I had brought a bunch of stuff with Me that people had donated,

and it was stuff for women and babies, because that's what we think of that we think of women and babies needing help. But when I dropped it off at this little aid depot, the woman was really angry.

She said, not another American bringing stuff for women and children.

Look at all this pile of stuff for women and children. And then look at this pile of men's stuff. Or like. Or look at this empty corner for men.

Like, where's the stuff for men?

She was. You can tell, she was just fed up. I probably was the 100th person to be like, I brought stuff and it's absolutely was not needed.

Completely a waste of time for me to collect it. A waste of people's efforts.

And I just was like, how did I not realize this? So that was like, embarrassment number one.

Melissa: It was, you know, I was learning experience, for sure.

Hayley: Yeah,

I was wilting inside.

But, you know, I speak Arabic. And so I was like, I'm going to be really useful at this camp. And so I went to Moria Camp.

It's a big camp. It's like an entrance camp on the island of Lesbos. So a lot of people,

Syrians, will take dinghies from Turkey and cross the Aegean Sea over to Lesbos, and there's a large reception camp. At the time, it was a reception camp where people would go and register.

They would register with the UNHCR and get refugee status and start their journey as a refugee.

And so I was at this camp for two weeks, and it was pure chaos. No one knew anything. None of the authorities knew anything. The police, the Greek police that were there were really cruel and, like, mean and rude.

There. There weren't enough volunteers. No one knew what was going on. The signage was poor. It was raining every day. People were soaking wet. They needed places to just sit and wait for registration,

which was taking two to three days. At this time,

there was nowhere to sleep. There was no food, it was muddy. It was chaos.

And I thought I would be just helping people, direct people.

You need to go here, and you go here, sir. And here, ma', am, you go here. No, it was more like people desperately coming up to me, where do I go?

I need to sleep. I'm hungry. I need to go to the bathroom. And I would just be like, I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you.

Like, the toilets are over there, Those ones that are overflowing. Sure. You know,

I have this baby. I don't. Like, where do I sleep with my baby? And I'd have to say, I, sorry, I can't help you, I'm sorry. That, or I don't know, I'm sorry.

So I got really good at saying that in Syrian Arabic. And then one day in particular was like, that was the day where I just broke,

which I guess needed to happen because that's what inspired me to start the organization in the first place. But Lesbos is, is a large island and so not every dinghy arrives at the same beach.

And so the place where I was was kind of far away from those beaches. And so we didn't get new arrivals,

but some dinghies would go around and then land nearby or crash or capsize. And so that's what happened is we got word that a couple of dinghies had capsized right near this particular camp.

And instead of going to these other emergency setups where people could get clothed and everything,

they came to this camp.

There was a clothing hut. And so they asked me and another volunteer, please go into this hut and help this long line of people find clothing.

And I looked out the tent and it was just, it was dozens of people lined up,

soaking wet. It is December in Greece. Freezing.

Greece is actually very, very cold. I've spent a lot of winters there since then. Pete, Leo. It was, it was horrific. The first person in line was an elderly man whose chin was violently shaking because he was so cold.

And he was like, please, please help me.

And,

and so I would go into the hut because they weren't allowed in the hut. I would go into the hut and try to find socks, I would try to find jackets, I would try to find anything that is for winter,

clothing for winter, appropriate for winter. So I was opening boxes and nothing was labeled, nothing was like sorted. And so the volunteer and I were just like opening boxes and finding just junk, finding dirty clothes like tank tops, high heels.

There was like lingerie, stinky clothes and like nothing for winter, nothing for men,

all for women.

And so I, I couldn't help them. And they had to just. Eventually they were put in these two tents, one for women, one for men, told to strip.

And they threw in these blankets and these emergency blankets. And so they just had to huddle in there until help arrived. I.

My shift was over by then and I was so frazzled that I, I had to leave and I, I left without a jacket and without my, I was only wearing my T shirt and leggings cuz I'd given my stuff away.

And I, I think when I got back home after that trip, I was a little Bit stunned, because if this is Europe in 2015 and the situation's this chaotic and this disorganized, I don't want to know what it's like elsewhere where the aid infrastructure is maybe worse or not not as well funded or is not even on the news,

which happens a lot. Most refugee crises don't even make it to the news.

And.

And so that's when I was like, I gotta do something about this.

I still kept my job and I just started LHI as a side project because in my mind I was like, I don't know how to run an org. I know how to talk to people.

I know how to help people. I know how to collect some stuff. I know who. I know who to talk to on the receiving end about, like, what do you actually need?

And so, yeah, the first project was just to collect things that are actually needed and people actually ask for,

organize it into boxes,

labeled boxes, and put them on a, on a truck and have them sent to a refugee camp somewhere. The first one went to Lebanon. But you. Do you think that's like, overly simple?

Like, okay, Haley, that's a. What kind of business model is that? Sending aid that's like labeled like, you would be shocked at how rarely that actually happens. And so it grew.

Within a couple of months, it went from collecting aid to me permanently moving overseas and being on the ground. And then the team growing from me to now 17 full and part time employees around the world with projects in several countries,

community centers, livestock projects, a huge wide array of services for displaced people and refugees. That's where we are today. Yeah, that's a long story.

Melissa: Well, I appreciate you taking the. Yeah, no, I appreciate you taking the time to give that kind of inside look that many of us have not personally experienced and to give us that perspective.

I think it really sticks with people and helps us when we're wanting to give help, know how to do it and go about it. And that did really stick out to me as I was studying more about your organization, how you say that you provide aid people have asked for,

and all of your aid started with conversations.

Hayley: Absolutely, all of it, including our livestock program that also started with a personal experience I had.

Melissa: So, yes, I noticed your livestock program that you have there, where for animal tracks. Is that what you call it? Right?

Hayley: That's right. We call it animal tracks.

Melissa: Yeah, yeah, let's. Let's go over that for a little bit.

Hayley: Yeah, so. So like you said, all of our projects are based on conversations we have with people on the ground and with local organizations and community groups. We do not want to replicate any aid.

We don't want to give people or provide people services or aid that they already have or don't need or don't want, which happens a lot in the humanitarian world. There's an expectation that because people are suffering that they need certain things when they may not,

depending on the context. It all depends on the context, the location,

the scenario, the demographic. It's. It's all very complicated. And to unravel all of that, you have to just go and talk to people. And so in 2017, I was in Jordan.

I was actually vetting a potential partner org, which is now one of our biggest partner orgs. I was spending time with the leadership, and we were going out to refugee camps so I could see what the camps need, talk to the people, just gather some information,

gather some ideas of what we could actually send through our shipping program from Utah. And I.

I mean, I love. I love going to Jordan because I get to practice my Arabic. And then the refugee camps people will invite us to sit in these tents and drink tea and chat.

And so I would just. I just loved sitting there with people.

We weren't able to stay for long, but I would. I think it's really quite special to show up and to talk to people and be invited in and just to be able to sit and talk to them as people,

not as like, I'm coming to rescue you. It's like, like, hey, I. I'm Hailey. I. I studied Arabic. I really love, like, oh, yeah, like, why do you speak Arabic?

Oh, I love the culture. Oh, this kind of food. And. And then so we just suddenly we start connecting over everyday things. Instead of like, I'm here to rescue you poor people.

You know, it's. It's not that.

Melissa: Building a relationship.

Hayley: Yeah, building a relationship with amazing people who have a lot of skills and knowledge that I freaking don't have.

And it's just this beautiful exchange of humanity. And anyway, this one woman,

she was so epic. She just, like, lit up a cigarette and she's like, let me tell you what in Arabic. She's like, look, I know you guys are out helping, but no one ever asks what we need.

And she's like, all I want is a goat. I want a goat because I know how to milk goats, and my kids miss drinking the milk. And, like, if I had a goat, I could just milk it and drink it, make cheese.

She's like, it would just change everything.

That kind of hit me pretty hard. And then we went to another camp. And I was sitting with people, with women, and they were all saying the same thing. They're like, ah, we just want goats.

Because that's what we did back home. We're so bored.

Like, we know how to take care of goats, we know how to breed them, we know how to do this.

I was like, oh my gosh.

I, I did not even think upon entering those tents that that's what they would be talking about or asking for. I hadn't thought about it. And there's no way that sitting in America, looking at my laptop and researching, I would have ever found that out.

Melissa: Right.

Hayley: Or even just asking another organization that works there, like, what do you think people need? Like, it just wouldn't have come up. And so from that and from my experience in Greece, it's, that's just, that is the standard.

We go and we talk to people.

Melissa: Well, I think that I love that advice because that, that's great. That is ground level advice for any kind of help you want to give. Whether it's your neighbor that's struggling or showing up at your kids school or a nonprofit in your community, or humanitarian work, Just taking the time to stop and say,

what are your needs?

What do you actually need? And how can I help fulfill that?

Hayley: Yeah, exactly. You make a good point. It's basic, it's a very fundamental thing to,

to look in someone's eyes and, and connect with them and ask them what they actually need in a time of need.

Melissa: So that started that program, you started sending goats and yeah, we, we, we.

Hayley: Purchase goats locally from local breeders,

lots of local breeders, lots of local farms. And some have 20, some have 30. And so we would,

we would collect them and do distributions of about 200 goats. Each family gets two goats. And then once they have the goats, they gather the goats and they like, they plan to rent a stud.

And like once they have the goats, they know exactly what to do and they immediately start breeding them. Some of them come pregnant because this particular breed of goat usually has twins, if not triplets.

And so some of them would get pregnant goats and they like within a couple months they had two baby goats. And then they're incredible. And so within a year they could grow their herds and multiply them.

And within, within several years, I mean, some of them grew these massive herds and had become a local breeder themselves and they were able to move out of these, these camps that they were living in and, and rent a little house and.

Right. We really want to just help people rise out of the situations where they have no control and it has nothing to do with them. It has nothing to do with their efforts or lack of effort.

Right. It's just a complete fluke that they happen to be born in a place that's at war. Like, they end up in this horrific situation and like, it's. It's my duty as humanitarian to figure out how to help them out of that.

So we have expanded to several countries,

and we do sheep and pigs and chickens now,

and goats are by far the most popular just because they breed quickly and can have multiple babies at once.

So.

Kenya, and we're gonna expand to Afghanistan and still Jordan. Yeah. And it's just beautiful to see how families from different cultures really do benefit from having these animals.

Melissa: Absolutely. Yeah. You have a lot of great programs and ways that you're providing that aid.

And I think too, I love the way that you're organ to help other people that want to give that help and assistance.

Because as I mentioned to you before we began this, that's how I discovered your organization was we were looking for projects for the day of service and found a way we could do some school kits and.

And it was great. And you have that information out there and ways to help people see the exact need and what exactly can go into those kits. You do hygiene kits, all sorts of things.

So I think that is another thing about your organization that's unique as you. The way you invite and help others easily get on board with what you're doing.

Hayley: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's inspired from my first trip to Greece, where I just didn't know what I was doing.

And I thought I did, but I really didn't. And so I think I don't ever want anyone to feel that way.

The feeling of showing up and being like, oh my gosh, I am an idiot. I didn't know what I was getting into. So that's why we really try to simplify it.

We also try to show at the warehouse, we try to show our impact through videos and photos just so that people know that what they're doing is actually making an impact.

It's not just getting sent somewhere and you hope it gets to where it's going.

Like, we want to make sure that people know that we've done. We've vetted partner organizations that we know the people that are going to distribute this aid, that they have spent time with people that are receiving organization.

So because we don't always receive aid ourselves, we prepare it and we send it.

Then we identify organizations that take it and distribute it. We vet them and then we make sure that they know the community.

And they usually. They know the community very well. They know exactly what people need. And I have been by chance, I have been in Ukraine and Jordan. I happen to be visiting a site when they're.

The org is distributing some of our stuff. So it's crazy to. They open the van and there's our boxes with the logo. And I'm like, oh,

yeah. I was in a basement in Ukraine at one of our partner orgs there because there was an air raid siren and I was just sitting there and I just looked in the corner.

I was like, oh, there's our boxes. There's boxes of quilts. They're like, oh, yeah, we're going to distribute those in the Donetsk region soon.

Melissa: Like, oh, that's great.

Hayley: It really does get to where it's where it's needed.

Melissa: Yeah. And as you mentioned, you have a big warehouse that's here in Utah that you use, I'm guessing, to store some of those things. And then also on your website mentioned that you help refugees here in America as well.

Hayley: Yeah, our warehouse is a really large space. It's a place where people can go and volunteer.

And we, I mean, we do everything there. We collect, we sort, we pack, we label.

We have a couple of employees who, like, this is their job to get this stuff out the door. I wish I could. The amount of moving pieces that keeps a warehouse running is bonkers.

Each shipment, and we've done hundreds, each shipment has to be very specific.

Some shipments don't allow certain things or they don't allow toothpaste that expires within a year. And if you send the wrong thing, it'll get stuck in customs.

And so. And then you have.

Sometimes they. They come to collect the shipment too early. Too early. Or like, they won't show up.

It's. It's. It's crazy. It's a crazy place. But I love it. It's like a community center. Every time I go, I just. I just fall in love with it more and more.

And all the volunteers who come, we have regular volunteers. We have people that show up once.

Anyone's welcome to come. And then we also help refugees locally. In Utah, we are trying to expand that program just because this year there have been some cuts to services and funding cuts,

and it's really impacted the refugee resettlement programs that are federally funded. We're stepping in to help absorb some of the programs that were cut. So we have a maternity care program where we just Link locals up with pregnant refugee women who may not know how to navigate the healthcare system,

may not know about car seats or how to install a car seat,

may know the transport system yet to get to their appointments. So they may not know that they can go to a regular doctor and not the ER when they're sick, just things like that.

And so it's not a, it's not really a mentor program. It's just a check in program like, hey, what do you need this week?

What can I help you with? And it's been really beautiful. We kind of absorbed that from another organization that had to cut it. And we also do apartment setup. We do apartment setups for refugees that are resettled by the federal resettlement program.

That's kind of dried up right now. And so we don't get funding. But it has impacted us in that we're seeing a lot of our peer organizations struggle.

We're also trying to absorb some of their really high impact programs, but we're also doing it in a time where people are very skeptical of aid organizations and a time when the economy is a little tight and so people don't have extra money.

It's been wild trying to fundraise to maintain our own programs and also try to fundraise to help some absorb into some of these programs which fundraising and funding is something I could talk about for hours, but I won't.

Melissa: Right?

Hayley: Yes.

Melissa: Yeah, that's something facing a lot, as you said, a lot of nonprofits right now. Well, this has been a great conversation, Haley, and I think inspiring to see how it began with you wanting to learn a language.

And you've been learning obviously every step of the way of what that need entails.

And that's something I love to end every episode on is just general advice. Obviously not everyone's going to feel inspired to start a program like yours,

but many of us do feel that pull, especially right now, to do that help with that kind of humanitarian work or with refugees here close to us.

What just general advice would you give for someone that's feeling the pull towards wanting to help in some way?

Hayley: I think the impulse to help is so beautiful. And I think a lot of people want to jump in and they want to do something with their hands. They want to physically be out there.

And there aren't always opportunities to do that.

If so, that's great. Go to the warehouse, volunteer at the warehouse. But as someone who runs a nonprofit, the biggest impact you can make is donating money.

And I'm not talking like a thousand Dollars. I'm talking if you sign up as a monthly donor, $5 a month, that gives a nonprofit a little bit of like, okay, so this person just signed up for this much.

When people do monthly donations, it gives nonprofits an idea of how much money will be coming in,

and then you can plan what you're going to do. Otherwise, it is a hustle. And let me tell you what, it's different from year to year.

It is so freaking stressful. And it's this weird balance of, like, we're trying to get money so we can help people.

Ah.

And so I know that urge to, like, go out and help and be out in the world is really strong, but also, you can do so much by just becoming a monthly donor to any nonprofit.

It makes a massive difference.

And I'm not just trying to sell my org. I'm just telling people that's. That is something that is so important. And so just do your research. Find orgs that you really like and you feel comfortable with and you feel like they have.

Are really transparent and are.

Are responsible with their funding and, and really help them out.

Melissa: Yeah, that's great advice. And the reminder that it does not take very much. It does not make a difference.

Hayley: It does not take that much. And I think people get overwhelmed. Like, oh, I. I can't help. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like,

if everyone does 5 bucks a month or 10 bucks a month can transform what a nonprofit can do. It really can.

Melissa: Yeah. And the idea of signing up that monthly donation, I'd never thought of it that way. How that can give you stability in the work that you're doing so you can focus your energies on that.

Good.

Hayley: It's the biggest, it's the best tool, but it's the one that nonprofits struggle with the most. It's. It's very hard for nonprofits to get monthly donors. We're not sure why, but it is like the most impactful kind of donation you can give, even if it's small.

Melissa: Yeah. Thank you so much for getting that message out there as well. Well, Hailey, this has been wonderful. Thank you for your time here.

Anything, any final words you want to share?

Hayley: Oh, no, this has just been absolutely lovely. I. I love talking to people. I know that we all have, like, I know it's cliche, but we really are brothers and sisters and there's so many people out there who are suffering.

Even our next door neighbors we may not even know. And so I think sometimes we want to,

we want to help the neediest but sometimes we can also just,

if we smile at someone, they might be having a horrible day and it can just change the trajectory of their day completely. I just think we're really,

I think we're very powerful. We're much more powerful than we think we are. I think kindness and empathy are just incredible. I think there's a lot of suffering, there's a lot of mental, physical suffering in the world right now, even amongst our own communities.

So just trying to be aware of that and also just take care of yourself emotionally, and that's the best we can do right now.

Melissa: Good, wise words.

And thank you for helping us to have a little more empathy by helping us see part of your story and the good that you're trying to do.

Hayley: Yeah, and thank you for this amazing podcast. It's awesome. It's inspiring.

Melissa: That concludes my interview with Hailey Smith, the founder and CEO of Lifting Hands International.

And that interview was really eye opening. I so appreciated her sharing her story, her experiences.

I think it's good for a lot of us that want to be involved in good work in our own communities or humanitarian work outside of our communities to be aware of how those things really work and function.

And just on a basic level, the two takeaways for me are to remember to communicate when you want to offer help and ask that question, what are your needs?

How can I help fulfill those needs right now?

And then the final thing that she shared that your small monthly donations to a nonprofit really make a difference and they can be some of the most impactful donations that you do.

So go pick a nonprofit, donate five bucks a month.

And I love that she shared that with us as well. So I will leave links to Haley's organization in the show notes if you want to learn more about them.

I also want to add that if you are aware of the giving machines,

Lifting Hands International is one of the nonprofits that are sponsored in those giving machines. If you want to give a goat like she mentioned in this podcast episode, you could do it at one of those machines.

I will leave a link to where you can find one of those near you as well.

And please, if you were inspired by this episode about refugees and humanitarian work,

please share it with a friend or someone else you know that might love to hear about the good work being done in this area.

And as always, I will always take your five star ratings or reviews on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to this podcast.

And of course this week I hope that you can find a way to do something more to help lift, inspire or make a difference.