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Monday, March 17, 2008

Life Experience for Kids

There are a lot of misconceptions about the world around us that many of our students have and we are always surprised when we uncover them. Things like how long the longest road is (yes, you can drive across the entire country if you want) and how big a "big" city actually is. We often tell stories from our own experiences and only to realize that many students have never experienced the things we took for granted like water parks, road trips, museums, cities, farms, etc. On the other hand, many students in the lower 48 have not experienced life in a very, very rural location.

Anyway, one day in February Molly and I were talking about a couple students of ours who have only briefly been somewhere other than a village. How fun would it be if they could visit us in Wisconsin and we could take them to water parks, malls, restaurants, museums, farms, cities, etc.! As expensive as it is to travel from here to there we would have to do a lot of fundraising for this trip and it would be great to do something similar every summer for deserving students so maybe we should start a non-profit organization. So we did!

We started an orgaization called Life Experience for Kids, LE4K for short. We will be piloting the program bringing a few students from Koliganek to the midwest this summer. As long as that trip goes well we are hoping to continue raising money all year to run a similar program the next summer and start smaller local projects that all provide experiences for deserving students, helping to develop self confidence, leadership, cultural awareness, and many other life skills.

Now the really important part. If you are reading this, you owe LE4K $10. Since we only have a few months to fundraise, there is a lot of work to be done. We estimate that it will cost at least $5,000 to bring two students to the midwest for two-three weeks this summer. That includes airfare, admission fees, gas, food, hotel, and spending money. Airfare alone will cost over $2400! That is why YOU owe LE4K at least $10. We just need 500 people to donate $10 and we're set! Every little bit helps! We are also writing letters to businesses in the area so hopefully we can scrounge up enough to keep ourselves out of debt.

Visit our website for more information and where to send your donations at:
www.lifeexperienceforkids.org
Just copy and paste the address into your browser. Keep in mind that we are just starting out and our website is under construction. . .Suggestions would be great!

4 comments:

Ann said...

Hey Brian and Molly!
Glad to hear that things are going well for you. As you know I am all for projects that help kids! However, is there any way that I can donate with a credit card online? I have no checkbook here in Costa Rica. Please let me know as I would love to donate to your project.

Brian and Molly said...

There is no way to donate using a credit card yet. . .It would require a higher quality website host subscription. The only idea I have would be to sponsor a specific experience. You could buy the admission ticket(s) to something we were planning to bring the kids to.

I will look into other possibilities and if anyone has suggestions for how we could accept credit card donations, please let me know.

coolskool mom said...

did you decide to stay in the bush?

Brian and Molly said...

Nope, still planning to head back to Wisconsin for good.