money raised and the Post Office throws a curve

In the past two weeks we have collected about $800 from a series of sources. It's enough for "a shipment" from Chicago to PCVs in Romania for our Primary Project. Excellent!

Our latest and greatest marketing idea is to "Adopt A Peace Corp Volunteer." Though much of our fund-raising will stay generic to accomodate the entire PCV list that we have, we will ask certain groups of individuals to adopt a specific teacher at a specific school from the incoming Group 22. Personalizing the process should make the experience a little more intense for both sides.

I anticipate providing additional materials to the adopted PCVs and I will be requestiing that they pay special attention to providing photos and official thanks to the sponsors. It means one volunteer might get nine boxes of books and another might get only three. But I am confident it will be a success in the long run.

Ou focus, has by necessity shrunken to providing books almost exclusively to Romania. "For the convenience of the customer" the Post Office has ceased providing surface service and sends only by air. Air is almost three and a half times more expensive. So, as proper stewards of our resources we have to decide whether use, say $50 to send thirteen pounds of books to 'whereever' or fifty pounds of books to Romania. The answer to 13 vs. 50 is obvious.

Of course we have books to give to those who provide postage, but most won't see the value.