Tanzanian Project

Raffle Gift Baskets

I have been working hard this past month getting ready for my fund raiser event at the ACS Spring Fair.  It was a beautiful day here in Athens this past Saturday for the Country Fair!

The theme was a Country Fair which included a chilli cook-off, cotton candy, games, Marine Boot Camp, American food, as well as Portuguese food, Korean food, Israelite food, and many other international countries represented by the student population at ACS.

The PTO of ACS graciously offered to donate 10% of the Spring Fair proceeds to my Tanzanian Project.  Last year, the elementary school raised enough money through bake sales and other donations to send 5 Tanzanian girls to school near Moshi.  The Noonkodin Secondary School is where I volunteered for a week in August 2009.  There are about 200 students - 60% of them girls.

·    Most of the Maasai families will not pay the fees for girls because some of the girls have run away from home (because they don’t want to go through FGM nor marry older men, especially because they are only teenagers and they want an education).  Maasai families would love to send all their children to school as they do value education as a ‘door opener’ for the future, but if they are very poor, the girls are valuable for getting them married in exchange for cattle and they do many chores (ie: fetching water from miles away, collecting fire wood for the daily meal).

i wanted to continue to sponsor the girls so they had the opportunity to continue their education.  However, since I wasn't teaching at the school any longer I was having a more difficult time figuring out how to raise the money.  

At the Spring Fair, I had 4 raffles for the 4 girls we were trying to raise money for (the other 2 girls had to leave the school).  I also sold some patchwork quilted items made in Tanzania.  In hindsight, I think I had too much going on and should have just sold my cards and asked for donations.  However, I raised about 150 Euros and the PTO raised...