About us

 

Project Go, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)3 humanitarian aid and volunteer organization which brings life-changing relief and education to some of the poorest and most remote civilizations around the world. Our focus is job creation and not just charity. Mission: To Lift People Out of Poverty "Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.” _John D Rockefeller With partners like you we turn donations into investments. Allowing Project Go to do, what it does-best, give people the POWER to lift themselves out of poverty , through projects that awaken the heart and unleash the creativity-of people in down situations. By doing this we give something as valuable as money, we give empowerment to the people to tap into the wealth inside them. The most important thing is that the power isn't in the project but the people. We just have to unleash that potential first, and usually a job opportunity is what it takes to unleash that creative energy. Project Go has been around since 2005, but the founders started doing the work of Project Go before that in 2001.

Our Team

Luke Richards

Founder/ Director

Luke Richards

Humanitarian network director, team leader and reluctant hero. A visionary and doer, he has gathered his best friends to volunteer in the most remote parts of the world. With 12 years of full-time humanitarian mission experience the greatest obstacle for him is himself. This group of foreign aid workers work hard to be culturally relevant but are still as American as cowboys and the death penalty. Luke doesn't much like travel or dangerous situations, but somehow finds himself immersed in both every day. Convinced that the stories he encounters need to be told, he is a lifelong learner, and a graduate of Chapman University's Dodge School of Film and Television in addition to an MBA from Duke University. His recommendation to would be volunteers. "Have a good sense of humor".

Our Team

Gregg Montella

Founder

Gregg Montella

Visionary of the movement. Chief fundraiser and would be comedian. Having worked in over 60 countries for 14 years he is a true veteran and expert in this field of work and greatly influences not only those below him, but above him. His team-paralyzing insistence on "extreme safety first" has come in handy on more than one occasion. Check out his ministry resourcing and equipping churches to make a difference in the world through Heroes International.

Invite him to speak and follow him on facebook.com/greggmontella.

Our Team

Jill Tupper

Executive

Jill Tupper

Founder - Warrior~Powered by Love: Practical Training in the Neuro-Science of Release from Trauma amidst Crisis

A Boots-on-the-Ground Innovator, Leader & Adventurer, Jill has worked with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India & Addis Abba, Ethiopia, served in Russia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Italy, Mexico, Ukraine…well, you get the idea. Her leadership training has been utilized by companies and organizations from Boeing, AMEX, McDonald’s, The Rady Center for Executive Development, YPO, Young Life…see more at https://jilltupper.com

As a Neuro-Leadership Trainer & Global Speaker, Jill inspires and challenges us to Live On Purpose and Take Inspired Action, which is exactly why, when this horrific war broke out in Ukraine, Jill took a leap of faith into the front lines of the war zone. She has traveled all over Ukraine, yes…even with bombs & missiles exploding, in order to train 1,000 + leaders, refugees, military, 1st responders… in the neuroscience tools to release from the trauma of war. Her methodology, a form of psychological first aid addresses the whole person: mental, emotional, physical & spiritual. With her BS in Occupational Therapy, M.A. in Leadership & global work, she has clearly been prepared for such a time as this. Her Release from Trauma Training is now in 3 languages and plans are being made to train a global team to response to global crises. She is being asked to return to Ukraine, as well as, come to Lativa, Romania, Armenia, Africa, India and all around the US, as soon as, possible. And YES…to do all of this we need you to partner with us!

Book Jill for Speaking &/or Leadership Training: jill@jilltupper.com 816.812.2887

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jilltupper/

https://www.instagram.com/jilltupper/

Our Team

Michael Mangum

Founder

Michael Mangum

Non profit manager. Holds Project Go down whether stateside or overseas volunteering his time since its inception in 2004. Encourager mascot and all around good dude. He is always a people person never allowing a project to become an empty program administering aid. Which is the core of Project Go's philosophy. People are our projects.

We can’t help everyone, but…Everyone can help someone.

Projects

Firewood for winter

LOCATION

Ukraine and Moldova

Warm hearts, warm homes.

Our team delivers firewood: Driving a horse-drawn cart was a surprising first step for getting life-saving firewood to the elderly and handicapped in rural Moldova and Ukraine. Many elderly are at risk for freezing to death during harsh winters in Moldova. For $100 we were able to provide households with a whole winters worth of firewood. In nations like Moldova and Romania, cutting trees or collecting firewood is illegal without expensive government permits. We have found a registered "Wood Keeper" who will sell us regulated cut, dry, hardwood logs.

We are now approaching our eighth winter providing firewood. Photographed among others is our first recipient of life-saving firewood Eugenia, an elderly Moldovan who has been disabled since birth. 60 seniors are at-risk of freezing to death in her immediate vicinity, and we are partnering with friends like you to save as many as possible. $150 (140 euro) provides enough wood to get people like Eugenia through the winter... $40 provides wood for a month. Let us know or donate if you'd like to adopt a friend like Eugenia! She was so happy, she loaded our hands with fruit from her garden, and knitted seat covers!

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Miracle Surgeries

LOCATION

Dnipro, Ukraine

Operation Can Be Done; The Children's Miracle Surgery Network

Dnipro, Ukraine: Photographed are children from an orphanage who have sucessfully completed surgeries and rehabilitation to walk for the first time in their lives after being told they would be bedridden from birth. We all wish we could change a life but often don't know where to start, well here is your chance! 

Imagine your earliest memories you are separated from the house and people you knew. Probably not a parent but a person who kindly cared for you as long as they could before making the choice to place you somewhere with better care, an ophanage for disabled children. Then as you grow you realize you have physical limitations. Doctors told you that you would never walk. One day, years later a group of foreigners comes to you and you dont even remember who they were but how they made you feel. Behind the scenes, this group stays in touch with the orphanage director and one day they arrange a trip to the doctor. This time it's all different. It's a long trip to a special clinic, nicer than you've ever seen. The doctors are so warm and nice and believe in you and tell you, "you one day can walk too like the other kids."

This is a true story, in the last 10 years our greater network has funded life-changing surgeries for more than 30 orphan children in Ukraine who without our help would remain "non-ambulatory" in cribs and beds their entire life. By partnering with hospitals, surgeons, orphanage directors and humanitarian leaders like our mentor Ed Dickson, we are able to provide surgeries in which the recipients describe the transformation in their life as miraculous. 

Meet Bogdan 

Not just projects, but people. Our numbers are small but mighty. 

  • 6 children's hospitals in Ukraine and Moldova
  • 4 corporate partners
  • 11 doctors from America and Europe
  • 17 participating orphanages
  • 30+ children treated 
  • YOU dozens of individuals

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Orphanages

LOCATION

Ukraine and Moldova

Children of the State

Ukraine and Moldova: There are over 140,000 orphans in Ukraine and Moldova. Those are 140,000 individual, beautiful people that have never experienced the loving support of a family. We aren't able to great things through our volunteers, only small things with great love for these children. In many newborn baby orphanages, we provide milk and diapers on a monthly basis; government money usually does not go far enough to ensure these babies have a healthy chance.

We go to the most neglected, the handicapped and mentally handicapped to help ensure the most basic of needs are met for these important ones. The Soviet Union was notorious for neglecting those that were not fittest to survive adn that is evident even today in funding for these homes. 

Through our work, we have provided not only the necessities for comfort, cleanliness, and health, but we also give these children, some of whom are nearly 20 years old the chance to get out and live life. Through sponsored bus trips and picnics we started, it is amazing what a little time in the sun can do for their physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. 

-Only 10% of the orphans in this region are the result of parental death, the other 90% are simply abandoned due to poverty. 
-The older an orphan gets, the chances of adoption drastically decreases.
-About 10% of them will committ suicide after leaving the orphanage before their eighteenth birthday.
-60% of the girls will end up in prostitution at some point in life.
-70% of the boys will enter a life of crime. 

Photographed are glimpses of the orphanage, the children, and the conditions. But our team is present and bringing real solutions through intiatives like CocoLoco. 

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Neuro-Science Release From Trauma Training

LOCATION

Various places in Ukraine

Six months of war in Ukraine: Brutal mental health toll must not be overlooked, warns CARE

In response to this urgent mental health crisis & being asked to come to Ukraine by ProjectGo’s Gregg Montella, we brought our Neuro-Science Release from Trauma Training. It was there, in the war zones of Ukraine, that we discovered 1st hand that what worked in the battlefield of the mind in the US, also worked in the literal battlefield of Ukraine.

We saw significant releases from trauma immediately & as a result, we were taken all over Ukraine, from Mykolaiv, Kyiv, Bucha, Odessa…to train leaders, military, 1st responders, refugees, Young Life, as well as, work individually with extreme cases. The results were consistent and effective, utilizing our Neuro-science Tools & Methodology. In 3 months time, we were able to train approx. 1,000 brave Ukrainians, speak to over 2,000 + and work individually on approx. 60 extremely traumatized Ukrainians.

We worked directly with people whose homes had been bombed, husbands and sons killed, babushkas terrorized, alone, living without water, food & safe shelter, leaders fighting, fleeing or frozen in fear, 1st responders utterly overwhelmed by anxiety, teenagers attempting suicide and mother’s paralyzed by fear of their sons not returning from war.

We are being asked to return to Ukraine as quickly as possible, with our Release from Trauma kits & Training, as well as, to Lativa, Romania, Armenia, Africa, India & the US. The plan is to train a Global 1st Responders Team providing psychological first aid through our Neuro-science Release From Trauma Training addressing the whole person: mental, emotional, physical & spiritual.

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Milk Project

LOCATION

Vattici, Moldova

Milk to money; Independent Dairy businesses

Vattici, Moldova: Petru, village mayor, and director of this project shows building plans. This village dairy business will buy all the surplus milk the family cant use and sell it in town. It can help everyone in the village earn $150 a month per cow. Here average incomes are $30-$50 a month leaving most people in hunger and poverty. Shortly they can then buy another cow and jobs return to the village.

As villagers buy more cows with income from their milk being sold not only will their personal dairy biz expand by buying more cows but this dairy factory will expand from a purely distribution phase (buying and reselling milk) to producing a brand of dairy products. Such as cheese, sour cream etc. This is a before picture.

Many in this village already have cows, they just need an opportunity for someone to connect them to markets. However the gift of a cow is as powerful as the building. A healthy cow costs $500-$650. You haven't lived if you haven't given a cow. This is how it's done.

You can consider it a miracle... Turning milk to money. For these villagers the ability to sell the surplus milk their family cant use is nothing shy of life changing. The excess milk a healthy cow can produce adds up to $150 dollars a month of income in a place where the average family earns $30-$50 a month.
While operational this project is not optimized we still need a pasteurizer to complete a dairy factory that will buy the villagers milk then resell it in town, shortly after expanding into a dairy brand offering: sour cream, cheese, etc. After selling milk the villagers can then buy another cow with the profit and expand their own small but independent business.

Currently the factory employs 8 people and 300 villagers from 7 villages all within less than one year of operation. Photographed in the beginning and completion of the factory in its first phase. 

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CocoLoco

LOCATION

Chisinau, Moldova

CocoLoco, is an anti-trafficking social business "Doing crazy good"

A new kind of charity:  Since 1991 over 400,000 girls have disappeared from Moldova, forced into the sex trade. When orphan girls turn 16 they are given $30 dollars and a bus ticket back to their "original" village. Vulnerable, with no documentation such as a passport or ID, these girls become victims: they are kidnapped or coerced into false opportunities to "work abroad." With nearly 20% of all the girls of a generation missing and no organization tracking the orphans who "age out", this is one of the largest social problems of the post-Soviet world. 27 million slaves are in captivity today; human trafficking is perhaps the biggest human rights issue in the world.

Is there an answer? We believe the solution is simple: present these girls with real opportunities for work and education before they leave the orphanage. Using our relationships with orphanages, we provide the next step for graduating orphans. Our original social business chain, CocoLoco, will train, hire, educate, and pay a living wage to as many young ladies as we can employ. CocoLoco serves coffee and cookies, and offers employees immediate employment, educational scholarships, and services to find homes if desired. We all know money makes the world go 'round, and for those living in abject poverty, the opportunity to earn money by their own hands, and receive a university education, is an opportunity of a lifetime!

The United Nations reports 20,000 girls are trafficked from Eastern Europe every year. How many can we save? Always one more! Every CocoLoco kiosk can rescue 10 young ladies at a time. Our vision is to open 10 kiosks as quickly as we can open them. You can help us! Together we can save one girl for just $700; an entire kiosk with 8 girls is just $7,000. The generosity of people like you have enabled us to already purchase business licenses, equipment, two vehicles and one kiosk. We believe in a new way of giving, gifts that multiply through enterprise. You can be a part also, would you consider contributing $700 to save one girl? Or perhaps, your group, church or small business $7,000 to save ten girls and build a whole kisok? For those looking for opportunities to join with us and change lives over 5 churches and 8 individuals have helped lay our foundation so far. You can be one also. Thanks to you our friends who come through on time everytime.

Photographed is the journey of cocoloco from an education and awareness campaign about human trafficking all the way to laying the foundation of a healthy business and executing our promise of rescuing those most at risk from would be traffickers.

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Aide la Vie Nutrition

LOCATION

Benin, West Africa

Aide la Vie is a new social enterprise which produces Ready to eat Thearputic food (RUTF) made from peanut and other seed oils. Easily digestible packets of the soft and palatable food product bring life back to people on the brink of death from Starvation.

Benin, West Africa: Aide La Vie Nutrition will deal specifically with the problem of child malnutrition that is very prevalent in Africa, parts of Asia and other developing countries throughout the World. The proven way to deal with malnutrition is by feeding children the highest quality Ready to Use Therapeutic food in specific regimented daily doses for 5-6 weeks. The food can be produced on the front lines in Benin with quality raw materials from the country supply lines. Saving the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in the world and all done in a sustainable way. By Aide la Vie operating as a functional business to supply an affordable product to be purchased either by families, mission hospitals, or bulk contracts through UNDP or USAID.

As our initial charitable investment gets us up and running it will transfer life in the form of nutrition throughout the African continent without further investment from donors because of the self-sustaining business model. Our Heart is to be a blessing to those in need and see their lives improve while showing love in action. Nearly 3 million children under the age of 5 die in developing countries each year; malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 35% of those deaths. Close to 130 million children in these countries are underweight and and an estimated 33% of all children in the world (190 million) have vitamin A deficiency contributing to the deaths of over 1 million infants each year.  When a person is not receiving the vitamins and nutrients their bodies need they will become malnourished. Benin ranks 34th on the CIA Factbook list of children with 20.2% of children 5 years and younger underweight.

This is why we are starting the organization – to target children  who are showing signs of malnutrition. That is where you can come in and help. Our initial investment before we can open the factory will be $14,000 for operational costs; establishing proper business licenses, securing grants, travel AND, get this, buy the plot of land where the factory will be.

Photographed is the plot of land we intend to purchase and what the factory will look like along with peanut farmers in one of the highest peanut yeilding areas in the world. We need your donations to break ground on this factory so we can litterally feed the hungry and malnourished children of Western Africa.

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For most, poverty is simply a lack of opportunities.

Donate

  • 82%
    PROGRAMS

    $518,710

  • 10%
    ADMINISTRATION

    $21,682

  • 8%
    FUNDRAISING

    $14,318

In 2022 donations went directly overseas through projects and administration supporting long-term solutions to poverty.

Project Go is a registered 501(c)(3) charity. Donations to Project Go are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. Tax ID: 54-2172258. Join with us in helping the countless many we encounter who are suffering from poverty, disasters, disease, war, persecution and injustice. You can have a part in giving hope, by making a donation to further our efforts. In the boxes provided you can choose a pre-selected amount or enter your own amount for 100% secure online donations.
Additionally to mail donations please use the address below:

Project Go
2632 Midler Ct.
Buford GA, 30519

Volunteers are paid in six figures... S-M-I-L-E-S.

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