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.