We're Done!!!!

This has been a success! We raised about $106 when we were tabling. Then individual trip participants and their families made donations that totaled about $183. Patrick set up a Z-Burger fundraiser for us, which will just add additional donations for Fountain of Hope in general. So we earned enough to buy mosquito nets for all 40 of the kids!!!! I am very proud of our group and how quickly we were able to get this done, and how willing people were to help these kids. It's great to see people join together to help these kids who already have so much less than us. So thank you to everyone who helped and tabled and donated money! We hope to send the money to RAPIDS as soon as possible so that the kids can get the nets as soon as possible.

Interning at AFJN was an interesting experience. I had a lot of great opportunities and learned a lot about street children in various parts of Africa. On Monday I went to a forum with the new envoy to Sudan. It was really disappointing to hear him say, "I don't know what to do. If you have ideas let me know, but right now we are just going to keep putting pressures on them and see if they cooperate." I had hoped that he would have at least an idea of what to do, but I guess he's new so he needs a chance to prove himself. Hopefully he will come up with a new idea soon though, because something needs to be done sooner rather than later.
-Katie

Nearing the End

So Z-Burger has been avoiding our calls and we haven't been able to set up a fundraiser. But hopefully the money we collected through tabling and the money we collected from just our group member donations will be enough to buy all 40 nets. We contacted RAPIDS and asked if they still had the nets and could give them to us at the same price so hopefully that will all work out. I'm kind of sad that Z-Burger gave us such a hard time but hopefully we got enough on our own.

I also finished my article on street children in the Congo. I learned a lot of interesting but sad things that can go on, even in the church. A lot of times the children are forced onto the street because they are suspected of being witches and so they are beaten by their families and forced to undergo extremely painful exorcisms by their churches. Bahati told me that if someone has a dream that their child told the devil about them they will take their own children to be exorcised. He said the process sometimes includes a hot iron being pressed to the child's back until they confess to being a witch, but even if that happens they are still beaten when bad things happen to the family. It is sad that a lot of organizations turn a blind eye to these children, but hopefully more and more organizations will be aware of the problems and allow these children to get their childhoods back.
-Katie

Next Fundraiser

Unfortunately every time I have called Z-Burger in the last week the man who I have to talk to is not there and they don't know when he will coming back, which is definitely frustrating. I really want to raise the rest of the money and buy the nets for the kids because they need them so much and it's important that they get them sooner rather than later. So hopefully when I call tomorrow I'll be able to talk to him and get something set up.

For my internship I get to write another article about street children, this time in the Congo. Bahati, one of the permanent staff members, is from Congo and just returned from a trip home and said he'd give me information for my article so right now I'm working on that. On Wednesday we are getting a tour of the Capitol with one of Fr. Rocco's friends that works there so that should be fun, even though we have to meet at 8:20 a.m.

Almost there!

After three days of tabling we raised about $106, which buys about 15 of the 40 nets that we need for the children of Fountain of Hope! I am so excited that we got that much of a response from the AU community and it is great to see that people really want to help these amazing kids out! Three people who went on the trip with me to Zambia also donated part of their refund check, which is amazing! I'm not sure how much that totals to yet but we are definitely off to an awesome start! We still need about $174 but the money we raised just from sitting in MGC is a great start. Our next step is to try and figure out another fundraiser to do, maybe Z-Burger or something like that that can raise a lot of money quickly since there aren't a lot of weeks left in the semester. But I'm still hopeful we can raise enough money and maybe a little bit extra to help these kids!
-Katie

Come visit us!!!!

We are tabling today in MGC, 11-2 so everyone should come visit and donate change!!! We've raised about $58 so far from tabling Tuesday and Wednesday. Even though we have to raise about $280 it's a good start for us. We haven't made a lot right now (Wednesday at 12:23) but hopefully by 2 it will pick up. We're also planning another fundraiser so hopefully we can raise the majority of the money before the end of the semester. People from our trip are also donating money which is great and is really helping, but hopefully other people will be interested and get involved. That's all for now. Come visit us in MGC right now!!!
-Katie

Slideshow!

So this is a video slideshow I made that we will be showing while we table this week. But since we can't really play sound in the always loud MGC I figured I'd upload it here too so that you could hear it. It's pictures of the kids that I took and some other people on my trip took and sound from the video that I am pretty sure I already posted of the kids dancing, but is still pretty cool to listen to. Enjoy!

-Katie

Tabling

After a very stressful week of arguing with University Event Scheduling and sending tons of e-mails to everyone in my group, we can finally start collecting money! We are going to be in MGC on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11-2. So come visit us!

We're going to have a slideshow with pictures of the kids and if I have time tomorrow I'm going to make some hand-outs about it and try to put it in Today @ AU. But since I just found out, about ten minutes ago, I hope it will all work! Hopefully we'll see you this week!