News & Stories

Online "Walkathon" Helps AIDS Victims

May 8, 2007

     Against all odds, The Alliance is confronting AIDS in a myriad of innovative ways, including a new approach by one C&MA church member in Florida. Not to be hindered by time constraints of a local walkathon, where pledges straggle in or never come, Paul Steinbrueck, CEO of OurChurch.com and elder at Cypress Meadows (Alliance) Community Church in Clearwater, has come up with a solution—Clickathon! “It’s like an online walkathon,” says Steinbrueck, who founded OurChurch.com in 1996 with a vision to make it possible for every Christian church to build and create an easy, affordable Christian Web site.  
     The AIDS Clickathon, which runs through May 10, is a fund-raising event to help support church members Joseph and Molly Bail, who will move to Kenya later this year to build Springs of Hope, an home for AIDS-orphaned children. The Bails will be working along side a Kenyan pastor to provide food, shelter, education, and love to scores of helpless children who have been left homeless after their parents succumbed to AIDS. It is estimated that nearly 12 million African children have been orphaned because of the disease. 
     “Anyone can help,” says Steinbrueck, “just by clicking.” When visitors click on the site, Clickathon sponsors donate to support the cause. The goal is $50,000, which will be used to build and staff the orphanage as well as to provide other AIDS-related relief. “OurChurch.Com, also will make a donation for each person who clicks,” Steinbrueck says.  
To click, visit www.AIDSClickathon.com.