Off to California

Happy new year! I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Well, I'm not finished with support raising, but I'm headed for Palo Alto, California for training. I'll be getting some training at Stanford for the next 2 weeks and will end the trip by hanging out with my old friend John, whose a worship leader in San Francisco. I'm looking forward to getting to know my teammates Aerie and Chris and also meeting more of my state-side colleagues who'll be working in San Francisco.

When I return from California on the 19th, I will go back to Morgantown to speak at a Rotary meeting in West Virginia, and to speak at a mission's night at Trinity Episcopal. During my time back in Morgantown, I will also be moving everything out of my house-- last August I didn't know I'd be moving again so soon.

I leave for Kenya on February 9th and will be there until August 8th. Please pray for safe travels. Thanks. I'll be keeping you all updating during training, along with pictures. I apologize for the delay in blogging and lack of exciting entries. :(

Current Fundraising Status

Hey all, it's been a bit since my last posting. Here is the status on fundraising:

The Sunday after Thanksgiving I spoke at Greensburg United Methodist Church in Martinsburg, WV and received $589 in personal offerings. Combined with Greensburg's congregation was one of my supporting churches from last time, Mt. Wesley UMC, who generously gave $1,000. Thank you Greensburg and Mt. Wesley!!

Later that day i drove back to Bowie, MD for a Wine and Cheese party held at the Weizel's house (my HS sunday school teacher and her husband) as a fundraiser with matching funds up to $1600. We met our match by the end of the week with a grand total of $3200! Thank you everyone at Trinity Lutheran for your support!!

As of late, I have been giving Christmas cards with any donation of $10 or more as a side fundraiser for the holiday season. So far I have made $280 from the cards alone. Not bad,eh? Thanks to all who have participated. If you would like to have a card, the pictures of the cards are on Facebook and are on display at Zen Clay Cafe in Morgantown,WV. If you are unable to go to Zen Clay, but you want a card sent to someone for the holidays, send a check made out to Nuru International to the address in the last blog (not the address on the right because it won't be highlighted as a holiday card donation). Along with the check you should include the address of the person you want the card to get to and I will personally send it out to them.

In individual donations I have made over $700. Thank you!

Awesome Christmas Prep video

Here is an awesome video to get you into the holiday spirit this season:



Now that you've watched the video, I'd like to add to that notion.

I'm going to be making holiday cards this year with pictures from my time in Kenya and in Sudan. The point is that you know that you have people on your Christmas list that you don't have the slightest idea what to get them; and so to alleviate that problem, I will send your receivee a Christmas card in the place of a donation of $10 or more. The card will have a note inside telling your receiveee that a donation has been made in their honor to Nuru International's Education program and the website so that they can follow up on what their gift has done for the people of Kuria, Kenya.

To do so, send a check written to NURU INTERNATIONAL with EDUCATION PROGRAM in the memo line to:

1357 Bitonti St.
Morgantown,WV 26505

Upon receiving the check, I will promptly send the card to the address you give me.

This way you get to give two-fold and the person you give to receives two-fold. It's win-win really.

THANKS!!

Wine & Cheese Fundraiser

The Trinity folks have done it again (thanks Mrs. Weizel) and THRIVENT has approved a matching funds fundraiser for up to $1600! So if you want to make your dollar go further, Write a check to THRIVENT and send it THIS WEEK ONLY to:

Trinity Lutheran Church,
6600 Laurel Bowie Road,
Bowie, MD 20715

**write in the Memo line Meghan kenya project
Thanks everyone, for your support!

If you choose to send a check any other time, make sure to write the check to NURU INTERNATIONAL, is stated on the right-hand side of the page.

Helping Hands in Global Partnership

Ok, so the title sounds a bit cheesy, but it sounds motivating right? Some people have mentioned to me that they want to help, but they don't have any money, so what can they do? One of my friends and classmates even offered up to buy candy bars and sell them to help me.

So, for those of you who fit into that category-- whether you are a bum college student like me or just don't have the budget to give (totally understandable with our economy and especially in WV)-- one of the best things you can do is to tell all of your friends to donate a $1, $5, or $20+ to the Nuru Education Program and it will add up seriously. Some of my friends have 500 Facebook friends and if they all gave a $1, well that's $500 right there! Some of your friends actually might have jobs, and they can even give more than a $1 or $20, which is cool.

Also, you can tell your church or civic organization about Nuru and what I'm trying to do and see if they're interested in having me speak. As long as you are within a drivable range for me to go there, I'm completely open to talking at any event. If you live way too far away from WV (like California or something) then you can totally show the videos from the website to tell the group about Nuru and see if they want to collectively donate to the education program.

I definitely could use all the help I can get and so if you want to help, networking adds up and REALLY helps me. Thank you guys for wanting to be part of the fight to end extreme poverty.

Remember, and tell your friends, family, and civic/faith organization that I will be keeping a blog of my time there, as will the website be keeping updates of what the whole team is doing, which means that this is NOT just ONE person fighting to END extreme poverty, but it is EVERYONE who is a part of this fight!!! We are in this world together and can fight together: you, me, and the people of Kuria!!

BTW, That's Nicole, the Water Sanitation Manager, in the above photo, on the ground in Kuria. To check out more photos, click on the link below or go to the NURU website.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nuruinternational/show/

Nuru videos for your viewing pleasure

So I really want you guys to go to the Nuru website, but just in case you don't make it there for some reason, here are some videos to watch to give you an idea of Nuru and my future life.

The Big Idea:


Hunger:


Episode 1: Training at Stanford:


Episode 2: First 24 hrs on the ground:



Ok. Press Play. Enjoy. Go.

PS- The NURU WEBSITE is magnificently and beautifully done so I encourage you to check it out and read it because it's uber informative!

Information on Nuru donations

So some of you may be wondering how to donate in the effort to get me back to Kenya. I'm going to find out more information about monthly pledges because some have asked about that. For now, I'd say that if you want to donate monthly starting January, you can donate that way, but maybe email me your plans.

How do you donate?

Well if you want to donate via Google checkout, you can click on the link to the right and it will take you to the donation page.

Another way to Donate electronically is to use Facebook's cause page, click [HERE] (it's an easy process, for those of you who don't know Facebook).

OR, you can donate the old fashion way via check. The address to send checks to is:
Nuru International
189 Highland Avenue
Morgantown, WV 26505

***Be sure that if you write a check to make it out to NURU INTERNATIONAL and write in the memo line EDUCATION PROGRAM.
If you donate electronically, please send me an email, because I don't think there's a way to specify for the Education program right now. So this way I can keep track of the fundraising.

PS- All of the links, plus the address is on the website and you can view it by clicking on the donation link to the right, OR by clicking on the Nuru link.

I strongly encourage everyone to check out the Nuru website and watch the videos presented there. There are TWO new videos on the site that show the staff on the ground in Kenya and their life there.

Thanks for helping in the fight to end extreme poverty!!