Fundraising letters

I mailed out fundraising letters for my trip to Ethiopia the other day so I thought I'd post a copy of the letter on here too.

January 1, 2009

Dear Friend ,

I have been blessed with an amazing opportunity to travel to Ethiopia for a month this summer to volunteer in orphanages in Addis Ababa. To make this possible, I need to raise over $3000 to pay for my plane ticket, transportation, food, and other necessities. I believe God is calling me to this work, so I believe He will also provide a way to raise the funds I need over the coming months.

There are 4.6 million orphans living in Ethiopia due to AIDS, starvation, malaria, and other causes. I want to volunteer in the Ethiopian orphanages to both serve the dedicated workers who care for these children, and also to show love and compassion to the orphans, sharing with them the love I have received from God, my family and my friends. I believe every child should know they are loved and wanted and I hope to be able to show them that.

I will be traveling under the organization Cherokee Gives Back, the philanthropic outreach program of the investment firm Cherokee, which works to improve the lives of individuals and communities from around the world through a variety of social, environmental and economic development initiatives. Cherokee Gives Back owns and operates a house located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where I will be staying during my visit. They will connect me with various orphanages in Addis Ababa where I will serve in any way that is needed. To find out more about Cherokee Gives Back, check out their website at http://www.cherokeegivesback.org

Along with working in the orphanages, I plan on utilizing my photography skills to photograph and document the people and places that I encounter in Ethiopia. This will help raise awareness for the organizations I will be working with, provide images for Cherokee Gives Back to use in promoting their program, and also will allow me to share with others my experience and hopefully encourage more people to take an interest in caring for the orphans of Ethiopia and the world.

I first became interested in serving Ethiopian orphans after our friends, the Mestas family, traveled to Ethiopia in 2007 to bring home their three beautiful children. While they were staying in Addis Ababa, they visited various different orphanages and met many of the children who lived there. When the Mestases returned home, they brought many stories of how little the children had, yet how joyful and loving they still were. Hearing these stories made me want to go to Ethiopia myself and meet these children and help them in any way that I could.

There are a few different ways that you can help support me:

First, you can help support me through your prayers. I will be traveling by myself to a third world country and will be immersed in a very unfamiliar culture. This will be the longest I have spent out of the country and away from anything familiar. As I go on this adventure I can’t think of anything better than having an army of friends and family back home praying for me.

Second, you can help provide financial support for my living and travel expenses as I serve in Ethiopia. As a college student, I do not have a lot of money and traveling abroad is expensive. In order to go, I will need to raise the money to pay for the trip. Here is a reak down of my estimated costs to travel to Ethiopia:

Flight: $2,000

Vaccinations: $300

Travel Medical Insurance: $250

Visa (<>

Room and Board $100/week

Tip for Ethiopian Staff $10/week

Meals, Taxis etc… $20/week

TOTAL $3090

If you wish to help financially support me as I serve the orphans in Ethiopia, please make checks payable to me and mail them in the self-addressed envelope included.

Third, you can help support me by donating money to the organizations I will be serving with. As a volunteer with Cherokee Gives Back, I am required to raise $500 to support efforts in Ethiopia. This money will help defray program expenses and help support the poor. Donations made to support Cherokee Gives Back’s Ethiopia Program are also tax-deductible [Tax ID 27-0132571]. If you wish to donate money to the Ethiopia Program, please make checks payable to Cherokee Gives Back and indicate in the memo section Ethiopia Program and mail them to me in the self-addressed envelope included.

To document my journey and to keep everyone who whishes informed and updated, I have started a blog, www.sherbert-footsteps.blogspot.com where I will be posting updates on my trip and my preparations, along with other information.

I know most people do not have the time or the means to go and serve in another country themselves, but by supporting me you are helping in another country because without your support, my trip to Ethiopia would not be possible. Thank you so much for your help and for caring about helping the orphans in Ethiopia.

Sincerely,

Sarah Herbert

Friend's adoption

So I am up in MA right now with my family for Christmas and there is about a foot of snow on the ground. Yay for a white Christmas. :-)

This past week I went with my mom and sister, along with a bunch of our friends to the airport to meet our friends, the Craigs, who were flying home from getting their two new children from Ethiopia. They adopted a 6 year old girl named Amberlynn and a 3 year old boy named Amon. The children were precious and the family was so glad to be home and reunited.

Amberlynn

Amberlynn and her new big sister Morgan.

Mrs. Craig and her new son Amon

There was a pretty big crowd of people waiting for them when they got off the airplane most of them little kids.

The group gathering after hearing their plane had landed.

James, Jared, Jeremiah, and Josiah

Keziah playing with her balloon animal while we waited.

Still no news on when I'm going to Ethiopia but I'll let you know.

Kolfe Orphanage

Finals for school are done and I get to go home Friday. YES!

No update yet on the dates of my trip. I'll post that as soon as I know.

Here is a link to Ms. Eileen's blog, Job's Daughters, and a slide show of pictures from Kolfe Orphanage in Ethiopia. This is the older boys orphanage that they visited in Addis Ababa when they went and picked up their three children last Thanksgiving.

Kolfe Orphanage is over 30 years old and houses around 237 young men between the ages of 12 years to 18 years. The compound as they call it has not been maintained in more than 30 years because of the financial crisis of the government in Ethiopia. The system is supposed to give each orphan $500 when they turn 18 years old and send them out into the world to start their own lives. The government doesn't have the money to do this so they have been letting them stay there so as not to be put out in the streets with no money, and no living relative or friend outside of the compound. Some of the guys there are in their 20's because there are no jobs to be had to get out and start a life of their own. Even if they have an education, there are just no jobs available for them. So, they live there and help out around the place. But with no money it is even hard to fix things that break! It is so desperate and sad. They want to work, they want to learn and get educated but their economy is just not conducive.

The ones affected most by the orphan crisis are the older kids that don't have a chance to be adopted and are forced to spend the majority of their life in poorly funded and understaffed orphanages like Kolfe. These young men have been placed in this facility with the hopes of having food, medical care, shelter and an education. Unfortunately, budget constraints have severely limited the capacity to which Kolfe can provide these basic needs. The clinic is void of proper medical equipment, the recreational facilities are limited to one dirt patch used for soccer and the basic structure of the majority of the buildings are completely dilapidated. These are the poorest of the poor, they have lost their parents, families, and friends. Unfortunately, this kind of thing is all too common throughout Africa. Poverty, AIDS & malnutrition has left a devastating wake of 4.7 million orphans in Ethiopia alone!

When Solomon, a boy living at Kolfe was asked what is was like to live at Kolfe he responded..."It is nice, I now get to eat 3 times a day. Before I came here at 7 years old, I was alone on the streets and sometimes I didn't eat for days. I know God brought me here and I am very grateful... I have never known anyone outside of this compound…”


I will not be working directly with this orphanage, but I do hope to go and visit at least once while I'm there and meet the boys I've heard so many stories about from Ms. Eileen.

Congratulations! You have been accepted into Cherokee's Volunteer Program - Ethiopia

4 days ago I received an email informing me that I had been officially accepted into Cherokee's volunteer program in Ethiopia. This means that for a month this summer I will get to live in Cherokee's house in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and they will hook me up with different orphanages there for me to work in.

If you want to know more about Cherokee Gives Back, the non-profit organization I will be traveling under go to http://www.cherokeegivesback.org/

I felt led to go work in orphanages in Ethiopia after hearing stories of the amazing children there and the terrible conditions they live in from a family friend Ms. Eileen. You can read about her and her family's amazing adventure in Ethiopia and their incredible adoption story on her blog Job's Daughters.

I hope to use this blog to keep everyone praying and supporting me on my journey updated on what is happening.

Unfortunately it's almost finals week here at school and everything is hectic. So this measly post is going to have to do for now until I have more time.

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.