is this your dog?!

if so he's living in my kitchen.

metro denver partners....rockin out...

long time...no blog...

it's been almost a month since i posted here! not much was going on i guess.

we had our monthly room to read meeting last night and we discussed our big fall event which sounds like it will go off without much chapter support necessary, which is nice. it's going to be a very fancy house in boulder and it sounds like the hosts are taking care of everything.
so we discussed last night where else we could focus our attention and the thing that we always come back to is raising awareness and how do we get more volunteers!
polly and chris sort of took me aside after the meeting and mentioned they'd still like us to try to get some sort of younger 'hip' event put together and maybe if we take the focus off the fundraising and have it as more of an awareness event we'd be more successful.
so i emailed the old group to see if anyone is interested. so far my sister has said she'll help. i think i'm going to try to recruit a fellow co-worker who has had two fundraisers in the last 6 months that are sort of the style i'd like to accomplish.
the only thing is they want it to be a holiday event. which means soon and which means i'm not sure how much time i'll have because i always work a holiday job.
so we'll see.

meeting update

we had a room to read meeting last night at kathy's and i wasn't too jazzed on going, mostly because the last meeting ended up being just kathy, polly and i. not that i mind seeing them and talking to them etc it's just that sometimes it's nice to stay home if you can! but we ended up having 3 new people at the meeting so it was well worth it. and everyone kept telling me how cute my hair was so clearly that was worth a night away from home. ha.
we have a meeting on august 28th with an old friend of john wood's who's agreed to host a fundraiser in his giant home on november 11th. i don't really have any purpose at the meeting other than i asked them if i could come as a learning/networking experience and they are going to let me! it's fun to be part of this process and learn new things.

Volunteer opportunity...

Hello Rebuilding Volunteers,

We are contacting you about another exciting opportunity to rebuild in your communities.

On Saturday, October 4th RTMD is holding our Fall Rebuilding Day and will rehabilitate up to 20 homes in that one day.

We need numerous (over 100) volunteers to join teams of approximately 25 who will complete a home in one day.

To register access your volunteer application through out website www.rebuildingdenver.org and update this by choosing “Assign me a Team” under the project drop down bar.

By early September I will be in contact to confirm your commitment and assign you to a team.

Due to our sponsorship model we are not able to assign coworkers to the same team as a group! Our apologies and for the year to come we are developing new opportunities that broaden our range of engagement.

We hope you will continue to join us on the path of helping low-income homeowners! If not this time, sometime in the future!

Best regards,

“Volunteering can be an exciting, growing, enjoyable experience. It is truly gratifying to serve a cause, practice one’s ideals, work with people, solve problems, see benefits, and know one had a hand in them.”

Lone Tree Barnes and Noble Room to Read Event

Hi everyone,
Check out the Save the Date below and join us at the Lone Tree Barnes and Noble for a Room to Read event! It is painless... stop by the Lone Tree Barnes and Noble on Saturday, June 14 between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm. Shop for Father's Day and all of your summer reads, and a percentage of your sale will be donated to Room to Read!
Simply print out this email and bring it along so that you can present the voucher to the cashier, or stop by the Room to Read table and pick up a voucher before you make your purchase. As long as you mention Room to Read to the cashier, we get the credit!
While you are at it, help us to promote this event by circulating this email to as many folks as you can, especially those in the south metro area. The more they sell, the more we make!
Many thanks and we'll see you on the 14th!
Denver/Boulder Chapter
Room to Read

an email from polly....

Folks,

After much consideration, we’ve decided to put our Literacy by Designers event on hold and therefore not have our meeting tomorrow night. We’ve come to this decision collectively and independently. We’re still very excited about an event that encompasses local designers to benefit our global cause. We are just not satisfied that the event as we’ve envisioned it will come together in a manner that will raise the funds that we hope to raise – with the amount of effort required.

There are many other exciting events happening throughout the chapter – starting with a fun event at Barnes and Noble on June 14th. All of these events require us to help and/or get other volunteers to help make them happen. Given this – we’ve decided to focus our 2008 efforts on (in no particular order) 1) recruiting new volunteers 2) recruiting new corporate sponsors 3) putting on events that have higher projected revenues for our efforts 4) holding a spectacular fall event in Boulder with John in attendance 5) developing our relationship with Barnes and Noble in Colorado and 6) coming up with a great auction item for the RtR international chapter auction.

Finally, we’ve got a meeting of the Denver/Boulder chapter scheduled for Thursday, June 5th from 7:00 – 8:30. You are all welcome to join us at that meeting, where we will be focusing on the remaining ½ of the year and brainstorming about what we can do – and how we will do it.

Thanks for all of your efforts and time on this event. Please know that it hasn’t been wasted. It has been a necessary step towards getting us to where we are now.

Any questions or concerns? Please let me know.

Kind regards,
Polly

i think the end may be near.

similar event...

yep. still only one rsvp.

some days i really just want to give up!

meeting *sigh*

our next meeting was supposed to be this thursday, the 15th, at my house but only 3 people rsvp'd yes. so we decided to send out an email seeing if we could get better participation on the 22nd. NO REPLIES!

why is it so hard finding people who want to help????

fashion show update!

finally. i have been slacking on the blogging!
susie and i went up to ft collins right after work on friday. we were able to put up our new banner right in the front but i'm not sure if it really meant anything to anyone! the fashion show was cute. they took recycled materials from a construction site to make the "clothes" for the show. unfortunately the mc forgot to mention us at all! so that was sort of a bust. hopefully we will get enough of the proceeds to get a girls scholarship though. i'll have to email alex and see what our "take" was.

the csu fashion show is friday finally! i feel like we've been planning on going forever. i heard back from alex and they don't have anywhere for us to put up our rockin' new poster or any sort of table but she said they could put brochures on their ticket table so that's something.
susie and i are going to head up their right after work. estefania was going to come with us but she has a meeting at 4:30 in the DTC so she won't be able to ride up with us.

pictures to come!

Girl Scholars Become Authors in Nepal

The first Room to Grow scholars began attending school in Nepal in the year 2000 and Room to Read now supports the education of over 750 girls in the country. Through this unique program, girls have the opportunity to learn not only the basics, such as reading and language, but valuable lessons in confidence and creativity. Last October marked the first time a group of Room to Grow girls collectively published their work in a Local Language Publishing book.
The work, titled "Hamro Prakriti" or "Nature: As Our Children See it" is a collection of twelve poems written by girls in the Room to Grow Program from various regions in Nepal. The girls, who attend primary to upper secondary school, were asked to write about the beauty of their surroundings. They created poems in Nepali on a wide variety of subjects including parrots, mountains, trees, rivers and the spring season. Our young newly published authors are: Geeta Chepang, Karishma Rajbamshi, Nisha Lama, Deepa Chepang, Puja Kunwart, Bishnu Khadka, Roja Karki, Rajeshwori Bohaju, Sabina Magar, Binita Karki, Merina Sainju, Laxmi Parajuli and Rubina Gurung. The book was funded by a donation from the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation.
The goal of the Room to Grow program is to motivate, educate, and empower girls. The program acts as a strong incentive for girls to stay in school and achieve. It also provides consistent and long term support to girls who often grow up in unstable environments. Their education allows them to take control of their future. This newly published book serves as a powerful example for other young scholars to reach for their dreams.
"Nature" by Binita Karki
Written in Nepali and translated to English
Oh! Green tree
Gives oxygen for free.

Oh! Clear river
Flows forever.

Oh! Sailing clouds
Thundering so loud.

Oh! Blooming flowers
I can walk among them for hours.

Oh! Lovely snow
Makes the winter glow.

happy hour update!!

our volunteer happy hour was a lot of fun last night. we didn't end up getting a whole lot of people (maybe 8 or so non members were there) but chris, estefania and susie all gave very inspiring speeches and it seems as though they hooked everyone! i've got 3 people specifically very interested in helping with Literacy by Designers so i'm going to be sure to get them to our next meeting!
these crappy phone photos are chris giving her talk...and her most captive audience!

our happy hour at forest room 5 is tonight and i think it's going to be a bust! not very many people replied to the evite and i'm not sure how effective myspace and craigslist are.
at least we are trying!!

Room to Read Happy Hour!

Location: Forest Room 5 2532 15th Street, Denver, CO 80211
When: Thursday, April 24, 6:00PM

World change starts with educated children. With that in mind, please join us for a happy hour to find out about the many ways you could get involved to make change happen. Room to Read is an organization that has already impacted the lives of 1.7 million children all over the world by:

- Constructing 442 schools

- Establishing over 5,160 libraries

- Publishing 226 new local language children's titles
representing over 2 million books

- Donating over 2.2 million English language children's books

- Funding 4,036 long-term girls' scholarships

- Establishing 155 computer and language labs

All you have to do is donate a couple of hours a month to help us organize various fund raising events throughout the year. These events have a wide range, so you can get creative with your ideas. All of the money we raise has a pre-determined home, so no money goes unaccounted for.

You know you've been looking for an opportunity to help others, but just haven't found a cause that really speaks to you. That was me before I learned about Room to Read. Plus, what could be more fun than helping change the world while having a few drinks?

I hope to see you all there and please please pass this along to all of your friends!

Room to Read Celebrates the Completion of its 5000th Library

Room to Read celebrated the opening of its 5000th library, established late last year, on March 2, 2008. This event marked a significant milestone in Room to Read's eight year history by illustrating its rapid expansion into developing countries as it moves toward its goal of reaching 5 million children by the year 2010.
The inaugural ceremony was attended by over one-hundred people including John Wood; Mr. Pradeep Nepal, the Education and Sports Minister for Nepal; Mr. Dinesh Prasad Shrestha, Country Director for Room to Read, and a group of Room to Read donors. The library at the Shree Gauri Shankar Higher Secondary School is located near Pokhara in the Kaski District, about 120 miles from Kathmandu.
John Wood and accompanying supporters were given a hero's welcome when they arrived at the 5000th library. They had the opportunity to see the library's 4,000 books, interact with eager young readers and speak with the librarian about the popularity of Room to Read's award winning Local Language Publishing Program.

In his keynote address, Wood lauded the Nepal team for their excellent performance over the years. He strongly emphasized Room to Read's mission to impact millions of uneducated children throughout the world. "Room to Read will not rest until we reach out to all those children that haven't had the opportunity to go to school," he said, repeating Room to Read's commitment to more than double the number of libraries established from 5,000 to 13,000 by the year 2010.

meeting recap

last night at the meeting we had polly, chris, susie and estefania (and me of course!). estefania was running a little behind due to a beauty process so the 4 of us discussed some other things like john's speech at CU on may 8th and what type of event to have after. it looks like we're going to try to do something at a private residence in more of a volunteer reception than a fund-raiser, which will be nice. i won't make it to see his speech because it's at 4:30 but i'm hoping to be able to make it to the reception.
we also discussed the CSU recycled fashion show event a little. they secured a pretty cool raffle. one of their members goes through people's closets and works with them with what they have in there and also what to look for when shopping. i'd like to win that prize!
also had some good ideas for the fashion show, like to work with buffalo exchange or babareeba maybe. other than that the meeting was honestly a little discouraging to me because it seems like we can't wrap our heads around how to make 20k with the plan we have.
after the meeting susie, estefania and i went to sushi hai. so yummy!

oriental theater

polly and i went to check out the oriental yesterday. i think that we can make it work although it's not exactly the perfect spot. i was thinking the auditorium area was a big open space but it's actually sectioned off into about 8 different areas. we could set up tables in those areas with the art but that would require getting tables and easels and lights etc etc.
also, the front area is like their gallery space so unless we book the front for the month of september, that area will be used by other artists not related to our event and we will lose the use of the area. it would be cool to be able to get some of our donating artists to also do a month long show there and to have a first friday preview event.
the stage is perfect for the band and fashion show though. those just aren't our money makers unfortunately!

tasks

-i've emailed and left a message for fabric lab. really hope to hear back from them!
-tomorrow i'm going to emily griffith to check that out
-today polly and i are going to see the oriental theater. finally!

meeting on thursday....

Room to Read Happy Hour

We're going to be hosting an informational happy hour at Forest Room 5! It's on Thursday April 24th at 6pm in the back room. The address is 2532 15th st.
See you there!

local volunteer opportunity!

WHEN:
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Mass Start: 7:30 am
WHERE:
Montezuma Parking Lot at River Run Ski Village/Keystone Resort
Summit County, CO

We are thrilled to open the registration for the First Annual Blue River Century road bike event, benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation up in beautiful Summit County, Colorado.

We REALLY need your help in spreading the word, since this is the first year for this ride and we would love to see this event grow each year. PLEASE forward this email to anyone who might be interested in riding, volunteering or sponsoring this event! Thanks!
Even if you aren't a cyclist, come up for the weekend and experience Summit County in the Summer. See our website for area and lodging information. There will be lodging specials in River Run posted soon.

This scenic Century Tour allows for 3 different finish options, that can be determined at the final aid station.

'The Blue Run' - Montezuma Finish - approximately 100 miles with 5100 feet of elevation gain.
'The Blue-Black Run' - Arapahoe 'A-Basin' finish - approximately 100 miles with 5800 feet of elevation gain.
'The Double Black Diamond Run' - Loveland Pass Challenge Finish - approximately 108 miles with 7100 feet of elevation gain.

**Considered by many to be the perfect training ride for the Triple Bypass event that happens 3 weeks later.

There are many ways to be involved!
We hope to see you on June 21st for some great riding, with some great people, supporting a great cause in a beautiful place!
Sincerely,
Blue River Century Team QUESTIONS?
www.bluerivercentury.com
OR
marie@bluerivercentury.com


Unity is strength, knowledge is power and attitude is everything.

an article by john wood in newsweek!

It Began With Books
On Microsoft, meaning, and the drive to help educate children across the developing world.

John Wood
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:48 PM ET Mar 29, 2008
My defining moment happened 10 years ago. In April 1998, I'd spent seven go-go years at Microsoft. Tech was booming, I was working 24/7 and had 75 people reporting to me. I needed to get away. The Annapurna circuit in the Himalayas seemed the ideal escape.

That's where it happened. I know "epiphany" is an overused word, but on the second day of the trek, I was invited to visit a local school. When we got there, I was shocked. I'd thought I was going trekking through Shangri-La, but here was absolute poverty, and poverty of opportunity. What really struck me was when the headmaster showed me their "library." They had no desks, no chairs, no shelves—and no books. He then spoke a sentence that would forever change my adult life: "Perhaps, sir, you will come back with books." A very simple statement, but it hit me hard. I'd had the good fortune to grow up in a household that valued reading, and my own family had used education as a ticket out of poverty. I'd made a decent amount of money at a young age, and I thought, I can get 500 or 1,000 books and help give these kids an education.

Back in Katmandu, my first stop was a cybercafé, where I e-mailed friends around the world asking for help. I thought maybe we would get a couple of hundred books. But 3,000 arrived in the first month, and by early '99 the book drive was a wild success.

By then I was based in Beijing, running business development for Microsoft's Greater China Region. On the first anniversary of the trek, I went back with my 73-year-old father—my new unpaid volunteer—and 3,000 books on the backs of six rented donkeys (on future trips, I'd upgrade to yaks). We visited 10 schools, and the outpouring of emotion was overwhelming. When the kids saw the books, they started grabbing them wildly—it was like a mosh pit—and they would then sit calmly reading to each other with these huge smiles on their faces. Nothing had ever felt better to me.

I sat down that night with my father and asked, "Is this enough?" There are hundreds of thousands of villages across the world in this situation. It was great to do these 10 libraries, but this was a drop in the ocean.

I knew there was something ticking inside me, telling me that Microsoft probably wasn't my future.

I returned to Beijing and quit. I left one of the world's best-known companies to start an organization that had zero brand recognition and no capital. Just my passion and energy.

Room to Read's goal is to help 10 million children gain an education. That's the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Education is a hand up, not a handout. We've built an organization that applies business principles to philanthropy, including the principle of scale. If a business opens an outlet every time it sees an opportunity, why can't an education organization?

We build schools, we work with communities using volunteer (but required) parental labor. If you want a school in your village we'll help you, but you have to roll up your sleeves and dig the foundation and carry the cement yourself. We're also establishing bilingual libraries, because we want kids to be able to read and write in their mother tongues and in English. We're very data- and performance-driven. We're in Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, South Africa and Zambia. So far we've opened 444 schools, and we'll be at 700 by the end of this year. We've opened 5,100 bilingual libraries, and will more than double that in the next three years. We have 4,000 girls in a long-term scholarship program, which will increase to 7,000 this year.

Why did I do it? When I started out, I was going through what a lot of people go through. I was prosperous, but what was the purpose? As a kid, I always wanted to have money, but once I had more than enough, I had to figure out what to do with my good fortune. I was searching for meaning. Room to Read has brought that.

We're happy with what we've accomplished, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. There are 100 million children worldwide not enrolled in primary school, and nearly 800 million illiterate people in the developing world. I'd like to catalyze the biggest build-out of educational infrastructure in the history of the developing world. The human spirit and this amazing device called the brain will allow people to break the cycle of poverty, within one generation, if kids grow up with books and schools. In the greatest era of wealth creation in human history, can't we reach deep, and give those kids that amazing opportunity?

"Ski to Read" fundraiser

Riding every Vail lift will raise funds for reading

Melanie Wong
Vail, CO Colorado

April 3, 2008

VAIL, Colorado — By riding a lot of chairlifts on Vail Mountain, skiers and snowboarders can help fund a scholarship in a developing country.

Ski to Read will kick-off Saturday in Vail to benefit Room to Read, a program that works in developing countries to build schools, libraries, and develop educational programs for students.

The idea is to ride all 32 of Vail’s lifts (or as many as possible), and get pledges for each lift, said organizer Meg Elliott.


Ski to Read: Get involved

The challenge: Ride the lifts, maybe even all 32, and raise money for Room to Read

How it works: The cost is $20 per participant. Skiers will get sponsors to pledge money for each lift ridden that day.

Where: The event starts at the base of the Eagle’s Nest gondola.

When: 8:30 a.m. on Saturday

To donate: Contact Meg Elliott at 471-4544, or send checks to Room to Read at 1420 Euclid Ave., Boulder, CO 80302

Participants will start out at the base of the gondola Saturday morning to collect their T-shirt, goody bag and lift check-off card. At each lift, skiers can mark off a spot on their card, and the day will end with an celebration.

Elliott, a former Edwards resident, hopes to raise $9,000 through the event. The proceeds will go straight to Room to Read and will be enough to build an entire library and fund two long-term student scholarships.

It is a great chance to get out on the slopes and help a worthy cause at the same time, Elliott said.

“This is a unique fundraiser because it doesn’t just ask donors to give money, but encourages participants to work hard for it,” she said.

Elliott, a communications major at University of Colorado at Boulder, got the idea for the fundraiser after reading John Wood’s book, “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World,” in a nonprofit organization class.

Wood, a former Microsoft executive, began Room to Read after visiting Nepal and being inspired by how excited students were to learn, despite having limited resources. The program started in Nepal in 2003 and has since expanded to Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka, Laos and South Africa.

The program publishes local language books, builds schools and reading rooms and funds girls’ scholarships.

Elliott and a friend decided to take on the fundraiser as their final project for the class.

“It could be a paper, or anything, but we decided to do something bigger. It’s the first fundraiser I’ve done, and it’s been extremely challenging. There’s just a lot of work that goes into it,” she said.

The fundraiser is sponsored by Vail Resorts, Paragon Guides and other local businesses.


Staff Writer Melanie Wong can be reached at 748-2928 or mwong@vaildaily.com.

meeting tonight

we're having our executive committee meeting tonight and it's at my house which i'm excited about. i baked brownies last night and made ice cream too! i'm a nerd.

and again!

last night i went to see my friend christy's new place and her sister shelby and her friend jen were there helping her unpack. we ended up playing yahtzee and i mentioned something about the "event" and as we started talking about it shelby told me she's in the art program at CU and she could try to recruit some college students to donate art and jen had seen john wood on oprah and said she would do anything she could to help. so i'm going to try to get her to come to our next meeting on 4/17.

sometimes i need to remember that just working room to read and Literacy by Designers into a casual conversation is the best way to get people interested and offer their help.
sunday i was at dinner and my friend jeff knows all about the event and works for borders and has been very generous offering to work with me trying to do a collaboration. he asked about the event and how it was going and it turns out one of our dinner guests, zoe, is a make-up artist and offered to do make-up for the fashion show and said she was sure she could get another person to help.
jeff also said that maybe we could publish extra copies of the books and have borders distribute them and sell them for additional funds, which sounds really really cool.

Dane Low

This young college student’s passion for educating kids in the developing world is contagious. This video speaks to the impact and power that ONE person can generate. He’s already raised more than $4000 for Room to Read with plans to raise enough to build a school in Vietnam.



Here's the Facebook link:
Let's Fund a Library Through our Facebook Friends

alex from ft collins emailed saying the raffle sounds good but that they'd like to keep with their "green/recycled" theme and do we think we could get something that fits that?
which i think is a great idea but i am completely stumped as to what to have for a prize! if only we could get a prius...

this weekend i'm going to email fabric lab and polka dot and then tuesday i'm going to go to emily griffith.
baby steps.

it's a week from the last meeting and i have yet to accomplish anything on my to-do list. although ashley and i did go into fabric lab to try to talk to the owner but she wasn't there.
i supppose this is typical of me though, always waiting until the last minute. probably not the best idea.

oriental theater

estefania emailed to say that the Oriental Theater is open on September 20th and it's ours if we want it. at the meeting we were discussing another place by Invesco that might be a little bigger so we may look in to that as well but it's nice to know we have a place regardless!

CSU

CSU is open to the idea of a raffle as an additional fund-raising effort. alex replied saying they had even been thinking that themselves but how would it work?
i think it would be best if we at Room to Read got the raffle item donated and then we sold the tickets at our little information table.
yes?
yes.

meeting update

the meeting last night went well. there wasn't anyone there from the event planning part of the committee so we focused on the fashion show, sponsorships and art donation. we all left with to do lists to be completed by the next meeting.

this is mine:
-contact the following local stores about collaborating on fashion show:
fancy tiger
polka dot
fabric lab
-also contact emily griffith opportunity school about possibly having their students create fashions

sort of unrelated to this specific event we also decided that we could pull together a raffle for the CSU Recycled Fashion show so i have to contact Alex, their president, about that.

polly told us that her aunt already has a painting, a photograph and a quilt donated! i need to get pictures and artist info on them so i can post it here.

meeting tonight...

there will be 5 of us at the meeting tonight, little smaller than last time but that's ok since i know we won't have many updates.
my agenda is to bring up the Fashion Group International question about how to help us raise more money. i know that we plan to have people go to the fashion show, sort of have a presence there, and that would probably help a bit to get general Room to Read donations.
the other thing i want to bring up is that my friend eric sort of volunteered to do a live painting that we could then auction at the end of the event. he said he'd "maybe" do it so i just have to turn his maybe into a yes.
you can see his art here...Buckner

John Wood at CU Boulder!

From Polly, our chapter leader:

Chris and I are just back from the four day Chapter Leader’s Conference at RtR’s offices in CA. It was simply a spectacular event and we are both so enthused about what we learned and saw. While we were there, John Wood told us that he will give the commencement address at CU Boulder on May 9th. Wow!!!

meeting

thursday we are having a Literacy by Designers meeting at susie's office again. now that we pushed the date back i don't think we'll have that much to talk about but i want us to continue to get together to keep our momentum going.
i do need ideas from the group about how we can make a little more money from the CSU Fashion Group International recycled fashion show where they've chosen us as the beneficiary. alex, the president of the group, emailed asking for ideas and i told her i'd bring it up with the larger group to see what we can come up with. i'm sure susie will have some good ideas, she's very creative in that realm.

not much going on the fundraising world right now...well not mine anyway! we have a Literacy by Designers meeting next thursday and that's really all that's going on.
so exciting....

volunteer for a day!

I received this email on Friday from the Mentor program that I'm in, Metro Denver Partners. Ashley and I will be there!
(here's the link to the volunteer app: http://rt.civicore.com/VolunteerApp)


I am working with Rebuilding Together (a nonprofit organization) that twice a year has volunteers work on neighborhood homes (like Habitat for Humanity). On Saturday, April 26th we will be working on the house of the child I mentor, Sharey Blackwell. Ethel Blackwell is 78 years old and currently has custody of 4 of her 6 great grandchildren (obviously Sharey being one of the 4 children). The children were going to be placed in children’s services several years ago and she took custody of her great grandchildren and is bringing them up in her home. The home needs a lot of cosmetic repair (mostly painting inside and out) and Rebuilding Together has accepted her house for one of this spring’s projects. I need to pull together approximately 20-25 volunteers to help on this project. It is only for one day and is usually less than 8 hours. I will be the House Captain on this project and will have a Skilled Captain to work on any major repairs that will be done on the home. The home is located near 26th and Downing not far from downtown.

I have attached the link below if you would like to sign up as a volunteer and help me complete this project in one day. The project sponsor for this house is the Carson Family Foundation which you can locate on the drop down menu on the volunteer application. You can also contact me if you have any questions as I have been on a few teams prior to this upcoming project. I really could use all the help I can get. If you do sign up on the site below, please make sure to include my name or Ethel Blackwell’s in order to be assigned to the proper house. If you wish to go to their website it is www.rebuildingdenver.org.

I have sent this on to a few people who I thought may know of additional helpers if you can forward. The more volunteers – the faster the project will be completed. Rebuilding Together provides you breakfast and lunch and the satisfaction of helping someone in need. Thanks.

meeting recap

at our meeting last night we spent a lot of time talking about how we can recruit more members to the core group. two ideas i really like are having a more casual open happy hour type event to invite interested people to and the other is to tap into the book club arena.
we decided to try hosting a happy hour the first thursday in may (5/2) and we're going to try to get somewhere in the highlands to host it, maybe lola or forest room 5.
the book club thing is a bit more daunting because it seems like we need a whole other group of people to be working on it. maybe we can find some book club volunteers at the happy hour.

so....

since the event has been moved the planning has slowed way down, obviously. i'm lacking things to post in this blog! i need some ideas. i was thinking i could use it to do local artist profiles but really, i only know about 5 so that would only take up one week. any other ideas?

we were scheduled to have the event may 17th but decided to move it to september. last week i found out that there is an event that will be similar at the oriental theater on may 10th so now i am really glad we are moving it.
thursday we have our executive committee meeting and that's when i'll be telling them all we're moving it. luckily susie and polly will be there too to back me up!

new stats!

these numbers are amazing!

Construction of 442 schools
Establishment of 5,167 libraries
Published 226 new local language children’s titles representing 2,099,000 books
Donation of 2,240,976 English language children’s books
Establishment of 108 computer labs
Establishment of 47 language labs
Funding of 4,036 long-terms girls’ scholarships
Impacting 1,758,020 children’s lives!

for you boulderites! chapter member Val Hovland event

Sunday, March 2, 2008, 4-5:30pm
REI Boulder, 1789 28th St., Boulder, CO

What’s it like to survive a night in a cramped snow cave at 24,500 feet after your tent and belongings blow away in 80 mph winds? What’s it like for a girl to grow up in a village in Nepal with no school? And what do they have in common?
Join Boulderite Val Hovland for tales and slides from trekking and climbing in the Himalaya, her successful climb of 26,290 ft Shishapangma, and help support a new school in Nepal through her climb of Everest this spring.

Share in the memories of yak bells through the night, snow loudly falling, the sweetness of milk tea, ever-present Buddha eyes, the smell of diesel and kerosene, potatoes in every and any form, excitement of children in the upcoming village, swirling juniper smoke, and unforgettable high peaks and experiences on ice, rock, and snow.

Learn what it takes to prepare for the next big adventure—Everest, and support education by helping to fund a new school in Nepal through Room to Read!

Namaste.

P.S. If you cannot attend but would like to donate, please click here https://www.roomtoread.org/involvement/donate/us.php?source=Hovland08 (fill in "Hovland Everest School" in the Special Instructions box)

Paul Polak Discusses His New Book Out of Poverty

Colorado's own Paul Polak recently published a book titled Out of
Poverty and will be speaking at an event in Denver this Thursday.
Details about the event are below:

Paul Polak Discusses His New Book Out of Poverty
Thursday, February 28, 2008 7:30 PM
Tattered Cover — LoDo Store
1628 16th Street at Wynkoop
Denver, CO

For anyone who's not familiar with Paul Polak's work, he started
Lakewood, Colorado-based International Development Enterprises
(IDE)about 25 years ago, which helps the extreme poor (<$1/day) to
increase their incomes through ultra-affordable agricultural
technology. Of the 1.1 billion people who struggle to survive on less
than $1/day, approximately 800 million make their living from farming.
In one example, Nepalese farmer Krishna Bahadur Thapa increased his
income from less than $1/day to $4,800 per year. One of the first
things farmers do when they raise their incomes is to send their
children to school. It's an inspiring example of helping people to
lift themselves out of poverty sustainably.

I hope to see many of you there!

hmmm.....

i don't really have any event updating to do, especially since we pushed it back, but i was going to try to find some literacy (or illiteratcy really) stats and i'm having a hard time finding updated ones. i'm not very good at googling i guess.

meeting update

last night's meeting went really well. we were lucky enough to be able to use susie's Live Urban Real Estate office. it's so pretty in there! we had two new people and there's also one more new person who wasn't able to make it but sounds eager to help so that would put us at 8! that's a pretty good sized core committee i think.

we came up with 6 main committees that we need and then we went around and everyone stated which they'd like to be on.
Publicity/PR- Paula
Fashion Show- Aimee
Artists- Polly
Event Planning (this will need to be a bigger committee!)- Estefania, Paula and Kate
Sponsorships- Susie

also we made a pretty major decision in that we moved the date. i think everyone was really stressed about the may 17th date being too close since we are really just getting started so we have a new (tentative date) of September 20th. estefania is going to check with the Oriental Theater to see if they are available.
i sort of have mixed feelings about moving it because that actually puts it at almost exactly a year from when i originally wanted to have it which makes it feel like a personal failure almost, to keep pushing it back. however, i know that to have it be a successful event we can't try to cram it in just to get it done. this way we may be able to work with CSU more also.

after the meeting paula and i went to swimclub 32 to have a drink and discuss. it's really pretty in there!

local language publishing

this is the part that i think is the coolest about how Room to Read does their Local Language Publishing program:

The books are created entirely within the countries in which we work: we work with local writers and illustrators to develop new culturally relevant children's books. Many of these stories are adapted from local folktales; other stories are sourced from various writing competitions and writers' workshops that are sponsored and held by Room to Read. The competitions and workshops are designed to promote a culture of writing, not just reading, and to source and develop new creative talent. As a result, they are most appropriate within a local context, which can sometimes be very different than a children's book written for an American/European audience.
All of our local language books are printed within the respective countries in order to promote the local economy and create jobs.

here are some pictures of the book covers....







there's another one that i really like called Balloon Boy. it's about this boy who eats too many cookies and turns into a balloon! it's really cute.

sick day part 2

-we still haven't seen the venue and that is really starting to stress me out! hopefully tomorrow at the meeting we can get that ironed out.
-also think only 1-2 new volunteers will be at meeting tomorrow. we need at least 5 more people i think. more stress!

taking a sick day

i had a really pretty picture filled update planned but i woke up with a cold so i'm taking a sick day!

volunteers!

sunday i called a few of the people on the volunteer list and found out that they hadn't received the email! that would explain why i didn't get a single reply. from my phone calls i've got at least 2 volunteers, not a lot but it's a start! i'm going to try to resend the email tonight or tomorrow. hopefully no one got it so nobody ends up getting two.

i'm also hoping to get the email together for the borders benefit day. my friend jeff has been great working with me on that. (i also get to dog-sit his two little dogs in april which i'm really excited about!)

i think that's it for today...

volunteers

our first open volunteer meeting was moved due to susie and i needing to go to CSU on tuesday instead so earlier this week i sent out an email to everyone in our volunteer database (about 45 people) telling them about the event and letting them know when and where our meeting would be.
as of today i've received ZERO replies! i'm starting to get really discouraged by this. there are four of us (polly, estefania, susie and myself) from the chapter who are really dedicated to pulling this off but that's just not enough people. i have had some of my friends volunteer to do certain things but i feel as though they are just doing it to make me happy and not really because they want to or are dedicated to the cause. which is really fine, i know not everyone will feel the way about these things as i do (although i'd really like them to!) but i'm just not sure how to get people inspired and moved into helping.
i am going to be making phone calls this weekend to the people on the volunteer list who provided phone numbers, try and inject some of my enthusiasm for the project and room to read as an organization.

jt nolan presents the lovely and talented!

the band that i really want to play for the event is jt nolan presents the lovely and talented. susie knows jt and he's being really cool working with our (non) budget! as of last night i think i have a band sponsor anyway so we should definitely be able to work with them.

check out their myspace page or their website and let me know what you think!

FGI meeting and Mina's!

susie picked me up from work at about 4 and we headed up to ft collins. we were meeting with the student chapter of Fashion Group International which is way different than an international fashion club!
anyway. it was great to meet with them and throw around ideas. it seems like the timing probably isn't right for them to help us with the actual designs themselves but if they can get enough student interest they could produce the show. the only problem is that our date is after their graduation so it would mostly fall to the students who live in ft. collins/denver area.
they are going to donate some t-shirt art to the sale/auction though! which is great. it also looks like we'll be able to collaborate on a few things in the future so it was definitely a good connection for us to make.

so...back to finding fashions. i really think in order to pull this off considering we're running out of time, i'm going to need to give up on the idea of the fashion having an international theme, being inspired by the 7 countries Room to Read works with. one of the girls at the meeting suggested maybe working with Ten Thousand Villages and having them supply the clothes for the fashion show which i think could be a great idea but i think i'm leaning more towards sticking with local fashion designers. i was thinking about contacting The Fabric Lab and seeing if we could collaborate on something.

on the way home we stopped in Erie (first time ever in Erie!) and went to the best restaurant ever! it's called Mina's Latin Restaurant. at first glance it's like any other mexican restaurant around but the food was so interesting, not typical mexican at all, which i guess is why it's called mina's latin not mexican. i had a bbq chicken but the bbq sauce was chipotle and included pineapple, bananas and nuts. they also had a salsa bar where you could sample as many salsa's as you wanted. it was funny because they had a mild, medium and hot section but there were no salsa's in the mild part. poor me!

meeting tonight....

tonight susie and i go to csu to meet with the international fashion club! i'm really excited about this meeting but also a little nervous because i'm not really sure what to expect so i'm not sure how to prepare!
i do have all the press information so i'm sure we'll be able to pull it off.
we're leaving at 3:30 because we need to be in ft collins by 5. i like leaving work early!

john wood video!

here's a video of John Wood, the founder and CEO of Room to Read, speaking on founding the company and the intentions of Room to Read. it's hard not to want to do something to help after listening to him speak about his experiences and the passion he has for what he's doing.

so much exciting news!

susie and i are going to meet with the international fashion club at csu on tuesday to see if we can work together on the event! if this works out they would do the stage management, event coordination and provide their own models. every year they do their own “Recycled Fashion Show.” if we could piggyback on these designs we’d be more likely to get their involvement. the other possibility is to find fashion from elsewhere, but have them actually put on the show.
there is concern over our event date being the same as their graduation date and therefor not having the resources to pull this off. i think i would be ok moving it up to april knowing that the fashion show part is being taken care of. so we'll just have to see what happens on tuesday!

the other thing that is hopefully happening tuesday is a viewing of the oriental theater. i've actually only been in there once and even then i was only in the lobby. we need to make sure there's enough room for all the goods we'll have to sell (positive thinking!).

the last bit of good news for today is that our event date could coordinate for a borders benefit day!
what is a borders benefit day? well i'm glad you asked! borders works with groups to provide coupons for 10% off on the days around the events. then, the group gets 10% of the profit from the purchase made with that coupon! so we can send them out to people who might not be able to make it to the event and they can still contribute that way. i hope that works out, that would be a nice additional boost.

venue and date!!

it looks like we've got a venue and a date! there are a few loose ends to tie up but as long as everything goes to plan Literacy by Designers (i'd still like a different name!) will be taking place at the Oriental Theater on May 17th!!

this makes it seem so real! yikes!

the only thing is that may 17th is a CSU graduation date and we are looking at working with their fashion department so that may be a hiccup...or it might not! too soon to say i guess.

tonight we have another executive committee meeting. i'm glad we'll be able to go there with some progress made to share with the group.

first open event meeting!

We are having our first open event meeting at 7:00 on Feb 12 at the Live Urban Real Estate office in the Highlands.
The address is 3627 W. 32nd Ave.

We'll be going over the event and trying to get everyone put into a position that works for them!
If you can make it please let me know!

Building Room to Read

Recipients of Room to Read's scholarships gather outside a library that the project built in Siem Reap province in Cambodia. The group started a program to offer girls long-term scholarships after learning that many families could only afford to send one child to school--even to public school--and they often chose a boy. Room to Read estimates the cost for supplies and fees for each girl at $250 a year.

literacy by designers

at the event meeting on thursday we were trying to brainstorm for an event name and came up with "Literacy by Designers." it started as Literacy by Design but we googled it to find that it was being used by a lot of different people.
i left the meeting thinking i liked the event name but now i'm not so sure! i've been trying to come up with something else to offer the group but i'm having a hard time with my brainstorming.
any ideas?

some keywords:
educate (education)
global/local
art(ist)
children!
fashion
read(ing)
books
publish
create

meeting recap

the meeting went really well last night and i think we've got a lot of energy in our group to really pull this thing off! i was correct in thinking that a local language book was $10,000 but then polly upped our goal to TWO local language books! i really think we can do it though.

we've got a couple places willing to donate a venue for the event. i think the leader is the oriental theater which is sort of in my new neighborhood and would be great but we do need to go check it out to be sure.

other possibilities are the funky buddha and the mercury cafe.

we've also got a few leads on bands/dj's...possibly a zimbabwe marimba band! how fun would it be to set the fashion show to that type of music? i guess i think it would be cool but i've never actually heard it so who knows!

polly's hairdresser (gordon of gordon's on 6th) has even offered to do all the hair for the fashion show!

everyone left the meeting with tasks in hand. mine are to put an email together to the volunteer list to try to recruit some people to a general information meeting on February 12th so we can get some more help. right now there are only four of us so we definitely need more hands to pull this together.

meeting!

my first event meeting is tonight! i'm super excited. we decided to keep it to a small group for this one but the people that will be there are all very energetic and full of great ideas!

full report tomorrow...this has to be short due me cutting my finger and having a huge bandaid on my finger!

raising the goal....

on saturday i learned that i was undershooting my goal! the cost for the local language publishing is $12,000 and i'd been thinking it was $10,000 all along.

so how am i going to make $2,000 extra dollars! i need some ideas.

in it to win it

friday afternoon estefania sent me an email giving me the details of renting the oriental theatre for the event, i guess she had just heard back from them. AND...the details are we could have it free if we guarantee a $1500 bar tab. easy! however, by friday afternoon i was still in the mindset that i was going to make this an online auction but i must admit receiving that information was making me doubt my decision a little. not to mention that my fortune cookie from lunch said "some people never have anything but ideas. go do it."

saturday i carpooled to the executive committee meeting with polly and susie and on the way there they talked me back into have the full on event, promising to help me. one of the biggest reasons i had decided to make this an online event was because i was having a hard time putting a committee together so this was a great relief to me. i went over my idea again at the meeting and a few of the people who hadn't heard the full details were really excited about it so that helped as well. thursday we are having our first committee meeting in boulder at polly's.

i guess it's a go! (again!)

lunch confessions part two

my meeting yesterday with polly went really well. i don't know what i was so worried about! she was receptive and supportive of the idea. i think i am officially on the meeting agenda tomorrow to give an update to the group.
polly did say that maybe her husband could help me get the word out there on the blog because he does search engine stuff! that would be great.
another cool thing she brought up was that the Seattle chapter raised something like $650k in one night doing an art auction. i think it was run by a group of high schoolers which made me think it would be good to try to get art from high school art classes to be donated too. good way to get parents involved!
i could work with susie who is our Students Helping Students co-chair.

lunch confessions

today i'm having lunch with polly who is one of our chapter leaders. we're meeting so i can give her a progress report on my event, so it may be a surprise to her to find out i'm taking it online! i'm a little nervous that the chapter will think i'm bailing out on my original idea, which maybe i am a little bit. it does seem to me that this will make it more accessible for more people. people who might not have been able to make it to the event can definitely check out the auction online and the artists will have more exposure since i can do artist profiles and link to their websites etc etc.
the only person from the chapter who i've told so far is estefania and that's because she was my venue coordinator and was in the process of researching venues.
anyway. i'm totally psyched about doing it online and having this blog to support it so i'm sure i'll be able to share my enthusiasm with polly and the rest.
we are having an executive committee meeting on saturday so they will all find out soon!

books books and more books

when i was little i had a winnie the pooh stuffed toy and every night my dad would have to pretend to make the pooh toy talk to me to get me to go to bed. i don't remember my parents ever reading me winnie the pooh books but they tell me that story about the toy all the time.

last night i asked my mom if there were any books she read to us kids that she really liked and she said, "i don't remember! it was all too overwhelming!" i asked her if there were any books with messages like don't beat up your brother and sister that she read to me and she said, "now why would i tell you not to do that?" i'm pretty sure she was joking.

later i went to my sister's apartment and i asked her what her favorite book was as a kid. she instantly replied, "corduroy, it still is." my friend brie came over and when i asked her what her favorite book was she said she couldn't remember however, goldilocks taught her not to eat other peoples porridge. when i mentioned corduroy being my sister's favorite book she had never heard of it! ashley (my sister) and i couldn't believe it but brie was in luck. ashley had a copy so she pulled it off her shelf and read it to us. it is still just as great of a story as i remember.
some of my favorite books when i was little (that i still have the original copies of!) are:

bony legs by joanna cole

popcorn a frank asch bear story

the witch who was afraid of other witches by alice low

has anyone else heard of these books that i still have twenty some years later?

it's amazing to me the impact these stories can have and how long they will continue to be favorites, even as i've grown into an adult. i still pick these up and read them from time to time and as i'm trying to get a book published for nepalese children i am wondering more and more how my life would be if my parents hadn't read to me as a child, or if my dad hadn't reenacted winnie the pooh each night before bed, or for that matter if winnie the pooh didn't exist. i am surrounded by books in my home and i can't imagine life without those stories in it.

what were some of your favorite books as a child?

funds for the fund raiser

one of the coolest things about Room to Read is that they have really low overhead so 88% of your donation goes directly towards one of their programs. what's not cool about that for me is that there are no "funds" for fundraising!
that's part of the reason i decided to take my project online, much less overhead for me to try to find funds to pay for or try to get donated. hopefully all i'll have to pay for is auction hosting fees and possibly some PR materials.

i'm wondering how PR will work for an online auction. hopefully we can still do some type of PR. i'll have to talk to paula about that.

online auction hosting software...

is expensive! i was just doing a little research and it looks like the base programs start at around $400 plus then the actual hosting can be even more. so it looks like either i need to find an online auction sponsor or i need to figure out another way to do this!
i have seen people set up benefit type shops on etsy.com and i think since i am looking to auction art and handmade goods that it would work, although then everything would have to be at a set price instead of doing an auction.

here's a list of the types of arts/crafts i'd like to have for the auction/sale:
paintings
drawings
sculptures
ceramics
jewelry
clothing
knit goods

hmmm...what other types of arts am i missing?

ebay and too much stuff

my mom and i were talking about my online auction idea and she told me she'd get to work making things to donate to the auction. then she brought up the idea of setting up an ebay shop with the proceeds of all those auctions going to this fundraiser, mostly because she has lots of "stuff" that she could get rid of! i think it's a great idea though, i'm sure i've got some extra "stuff" i could part with as well.

a little info on the local language publishing program...

Over the past few years, Room to Read has established over 3,870 bilingual libraries in developing countries by working with local villages, educators, and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). To date, we have shipped over 1.4 million children's books in English to fill our library shelves.
However, in 2002, our Nepal team discovered that our libraries there were not being utilized to their fullest potential because students did not have access to quality children's books in their local language. Before learning English, these students needed to learn to read Nepali, to foster their intellectual curiosity and imagination through books they could understand, and to further promote their education. We quickly determined that there were simply not many quality Nepali children's books available. Parents were too poor to afford reading material for their children, so publishers weren't motivated to publish children's books in the local language.
Due to this lack of high-quality books in the local language, we boldly decided to fill the void in the children's book industry through our Local Language Publishing Program. With seed funding provided by the Skoll Foundation in 2003, we launched our program to create and publish new local language children's books, thereby giving children access to the type of books that will spark imagination, curiosity, and a desire to learn to read.

taken from www.roomtoread.org

more info to come...

how i got here...

i've been a volunteer with Room to Read for almost exactly a year now. it was my new years resolution in '07 to pick up another volunteer project. i read about Room to Read in a magazine and it seemed like the perfect fit for me. after filling out a volunteer application i learned that the Denver/Boulder chapter was just getting started so i had the opportunity to be there from ground up.

about half way into last year i had the brilliant idea that i was going to organize a fashion show/silent auction fundraiser featuring local Denver designers. i brought my idea up to my friend Brie who worked for flying dog brewery. they had recently started having events in the warehouse next to the brewery and agreed to let me host my event there as well as provide the beer. i had a fashion show producer lined up and everything.

and then.

the warehouse was rented out permanently and the fashion show producer didn't work out. disaster!

i decided to push back the event to Spring of '08 which would give me time to find a new venue and a new fashion show producer.

long story short (maybe not so short).

it's almost Spring of '08.

last week i had a get together with Brie and my friend Paula (who had both volunteered to help with the event) to talk about the direction and what steps i should take etc etc and we decided to take the event online! so now my fashion show/silent art auction is going to be an online art auction, which means the art can come from all over the country and will give the artists more exposure.

now i just have to figure out how to do an online silent art auction.

wish me luck.