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.