Lesly's Birthday Presents and Other Updates*

Whew! Summer has well and truly kicked in around here. Mother Nature finally stopped with the incessant rain she'd been pouring on us for literally a month, and now has decided to try to sweat us all to death instead! It's 90 degrees and humid. Ick.

The school to summer transition has settled down so I can catch up on what's been going on since my last post....

The hideous heat hasn't stopped me from working on a ginormous knitted blanket though. I'm always so out of sync with the knitting seasons... sigh.

Last week I knit two (of four planned) large log cabin blocks and of course promptly changed my mind about how I want the blanket to look. So I've switched over and begun a log-cabin-of-many-colors blanket. This one will be a single, huge log cabin block and will hopefully use up most of my stash of Elann Sonata. That stuff is excellent for blankets.

Speaking of blankets - Mike who won the blanket for Nyslin's project requested that I donate the blanket to a charity. I chose Project Linus. I'm sure that my blog friends already know about Project Linus but I'll include the link anyway. I dropped the blanket off with the local chapter last weekend.

And Steve, who won Jester's project blanket, says he has received the blanket it looks good in his apartment.

So it's been happy blanketyness all round. :)

And in more good news my Income Generating Project for Joey over at Aura's House has been fully funded!! Thank you!! Thank you!! Joey's family of six somehow gets by on only $21 a month. Joey's family has the least income of all my sponsor children. And he is the only one of the children that is sponsored so he is the only one that gets the medical, health and educational benefits of sponsorship. Raising and selling hogs will make a huge impact on their income.

And the good news just keeps on coming because Kanika's project is completed as well. One of the other super sponsors, Dana, had the brilliant idea of holding a raffle. She raised hundreds of dollars for Kanika in the blink of an eye! Way to go Dana! I don't know yet how Children International and Kanika's family will use the money. Hopefully they will be able to at least start re-building their house. We will probably have to raise more money for Kanika in the long run but at least the family can get some significant relief right now.

We also recently received these adorable pictures of Lesly showing us what she bought with her birthday money that we sent. I love how she is nearly swamped by all the groceries in the first photo. It's sort of a Lesly version of "Where's Waldo". :)


Lesly with the spoils of her birthday shopping spree.

We should be getting an update on the progress of Lesly's roof project any time now. I can't wait!!


I just love Lesly's Cheshire Cat smile!

I talked about this in my last post but I've been thinking some more this past week about what my next step will be for my sponsor kids after I get all of their Income Generating Projects in place. So far I have funded (or am funding) projects for:

1.Harry
2.Maica
3.Jhonny
4.Lesly
5.Nyslin
6.Joey
7.Hermelinda (2)
8.Zoila
9.Ana
10.Jester

I have proposals in the works for:
1.Jenie
2.Glenn
3.Mary Joy
4.Flor
5.Javiera (special needs)
6.Carla
7. And hopefully and additional housing project for Hermelinda.

I'm also teaming up on a project for Alison with my sister who sponsor's Alison's brother Jhonathan.

I can probably get most of these projects launched by the end of this year. That's my goal anyway! After that, I am thinking I will concentrate on making sure that all the children have adequate bathroom facilities. Some of them do already but most of them share a community latrine. It would be much healthier of they each had their own - can you imagine not having a bathroom? I can't.

I have nothing in the works yet for my three newest sponsor children. I have to get to know them and their families better before I can determine what their needs might be. I'm sure I will end up doing an IGP for those three families as well sometime in the future.

And lastly - I finally feel like my eyes have gotten adjusted to the contacts. Now I can "See the world in HD" just like that annoying TV commercial... I've gotten pretty good at putting them in easily. Taking them out is harder but I'm starting to get the hang of it.

There you go. Those are all the updates I can think of/have time for right now. What have all of you been doing??

*If you are looking for creative blog post titles I'm afraid you are in the wrong place. :)

Kanika's Story

If you read my blog it should be obvious to you that I am very devoted to my sponsor children.

Since September of last year I've been working my way through my list of 18 children, trying to start an Income Generating Business Project for each family so that they can hopefully work towards a better lifestyle for themselves. If the family is unable to sustain a business, then I have tried to help them with any special needs like home repair, buying beds, cooking supplies - anything they might need to live more comfortably.

So far I have helped seven families (one family has had two projects- so eight projects total) plus I currently have three more projects in the works. So ten families have been helped in all! At this time, I have only heard back from three of the projects so I am looking forward to lots and lots of pictures and reports in the near future. I can't wait!!

I also have plans for projects for six more of my families. Right now I am waiting for various updates and clarifications etc. so although I can't tackle those projects right away, I will probably start in on them in the late summer. The last two of my sponsor children are my newest kids and I have not yet made a plan for them.

So - whew! I've been BUSY!

In addition to my own sponsor kids, I am also part of a group that raises money to help other sponsors fund projects for their children. To date this group has funded eight projects and the ninth one is very close to completion! The group operates on a "pay it forward" type philosophy that has been very successful so far. All of these projects have been funded in the space of just a few months! In fact, we've been funding projects so fast that we haven't even gotten the report or pictures back from our very first project yet! So cool. I'm happy to be part of something so positive. I'm really looking forward to seeing those results as well.

So - all of this brings me to the subject of today's post. Our group has stepped up to help a young girl named Kanika.


Kanika

Her story really touched me, and her situation is so urgent that I've decided to post about it here. Kanika lives in India. Her region was recently affected with severe floods which totally wiped out Kanika's home.


Kanika's family in front of their mud home, now totally destroyed.

All of their possessions were lost as well. The family literally escaped with only the clothes on their backs. The good news is that the family does own the land on which their house stood - a rare circumstance amongst sponsored children. So if we can raise the money, we can build Kanika a new home! The other good news is that the US dollar goes VERY far in India. We can probably build Kanika a new, more permanent structure for very little money. The family had also proposed a plan for an Income Generating Business before the flood. Children International will now work with the family to determine the best course of action - proceed with the IGP or put the funds towards rebuilding.


Kanika with gifts provided by her sponsor, unfortunately now all destroyed by the flood.

You can read more about Kanika's story here. Any donations are tax deductible.

Someone said to me the other day that, "You have to do what you can, but you can't really change anything."

My reply was, "I may not be able to change everything wrong in the world but I know for a fact that I can change one child's world."

I hope to help change the world for Kanika!