Holy cow, it's March!

Wow - time and I have been flying. I am currently in Redwood City, CA - and I'm working again. Whoo hoo!! More about that in a later post, I just wanted to say I'm thoroughly enjoying being so crazy busy again.

A while ago I posted a request for help from Alex, in Munich. I'm thrilled to say that Friends of Burkina Faso won their fund-raising challenge:

Hello all, I am attaching the letter I received from FBF. If you click on “parade” link you will see the final amounts and tallies. I am so relieved to be able to thank you all for that extra help. We needed every single donation we could get to qualify for that $50,000 prize.

It was a hair-raiser.

I can pass on great thanks from Lacine in Burkina. He was so incredibly moved that so many people were involved in this effort. For a teacher in the third world to know that people all over the planet care about what happens with his projects---what an incredible encouragement!

Thanks so much.

Yours,

Alex

Dear Friends of Burkina Faso (and just friends in general!),

I want to share with all of you that the Lambs For School Project in Burkina Faso, for which we sought your support in December and January, has won one of the four international $50,000 awards through America's Giving Challenge!

Yes, it is official--after all of the tallies and discounting of multiple donations/donors, we retained our 4th place spot with 1598 donations. The charity in the number 1 spot received 1650 donations so again, this competition was very, very, very stiff and the results very, very, very close. We could not have done it without you, your persistence, and your many social and professional networks of generous family members, friends and colleagues!

See the results here: Giving Challenge

With your generous support and networking, we were able to generate sufficient funds to enable close to 1200 girls (300 more than our initial goal of 900!) to enter school in northern Burkina Faso over the next four years ... girls who would not have had an opportunity to attend school otherwise.

What an exciting day this is for all of us .... and even more so for NEEED, the community-based organization in Burkina which so effectively runs this project. Their work with village leaders and parents, their provision of school materials in a timely and accountable manner, their collaboration with rural primary teachers and their encouragement of the girls and their families is truly impressive ... and their success with this model is evidenced in both the increasing number of parents asking for support for their daughters through the Lambs For School Project and in the oustanding results the girls are achieving educationally.

So to all of you who went to bat for us and our project, a very warm and sincere thank you!


And I ask you one last time to spread our message far and wide to all of your contacts who also helped us to make this all possible!


Kristie McComb, President of the Friends of Burkina Faso

and

Suzanne Plopper, Treasurer of the Friends of Burkina Faso and Project Manager of the Lambs for School project