Reminder: The Online Shop Will Be Closed In March

 

Orders placed in our Online Shop by the last day of the month are sent to the school and distributed to students in the following month.  Thus, orders received on or before February 28 will be distributed to the children in March.  Since our Nairobi Kids will be out of school on term break for part of April, our Online Shop will be closed for the month of March.  The Online Shop will reopen at the beginning of April as those orders will be distributed in May when the students are back from break. 

~ Submitted by Brooke

Child of the Week

 Meet Yvonne- WHS474

Birthday – April 18

 

Yvonne is sixteen years old and is in Form 3 at Waddington High School.  She lives with her widowed mother in the Kayole-Soweto slums.  Yvonne helps at home by washing dishes.  She enjoys biology and dancing.  Can you support Yvonne as a sponsor and a friend? 

You can sponsor Yvonne for only $12.50 a month on the basic program, or $20 a month on the reduced-cost lunch program.  You will receive an annual photo and at least three letters a year from your sponsored child.  You will also be informed of the child’s grades in school.

For more information, please visit www.plantabook.org or email info@plantabook.org.

Please make a difference in the life of a child today!

~Submitted by Brooke

Share the Love Valentine Textbook Drive

Just look at the smiling faces of our sponsored children on Valentine's Day as they received special friendship treats from their sponsors!  This was part of our February “Share the Love” Textbook Drive!  Our supporters answered our call and donated enough books to fully fund the offer of one of our sponsors to match up to 25 math texts for each of Form 1 and Form 2. In fact with the matching fund, Form 1 will receive 50 new math texts and Form 2 will receive 51 new math texts.  Our “Share the Love” Textbook drive continued with a second matching fund for any textbook purchased for Form 1 or Form 2 up to an additional $42.  That matching fund was also met for a total of another $82 for Form 1 and Form 2 texts or revision books (school's choice), in record time!  

In addition, we raised another $62 for the general textbook fund, PLUS several sponsors purchasing child-specific textbooks for grades 3 through form 4 in January and in February!  This is what we mean by PLANT-A-BOOK!  Thank you so much for participating!

Here are some more sweet faces of our sponsored students on Valentine's Day, courtesy of our visiting sponsor Katja.  Thanks for the fantastic photos, Katja!

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing the love and planting books!

The Kayole-Soweto Slums

Our sponsors who have been visiting Galilee and WHS are on their way home from Nairobi after a fulfilling trip.  Katja sent a few photos of the Kayole-Soweto slums and markets while at the airport.  This is the neighborhood surrounding the school campus and is where the majority of our students live. 

 

 

 

 

Child of the Week

Meet Amos- HH671

Birthday – October 20

Amos is nine years old and is in Standard 3 at Galilee Primary School.  Amos is an orphan who has survived a great deal of tragedy in his short life.  Both of his parents died, so Amos went to live with his grandmother.  When his grandmother passed away, Amos and his younger brother were taken into Holly House.  Amos enjoys playing football and would like to be a pilot someday.  His best subject in school is Kiswahili.  Can you reach out to help Amos? 

You can sponsor Amos for only $30 a month.  The Holly House sponsorship fee covers school fees, the cost of the child’s room, and three meals a day.  You will receive an annual photo and at least three letters a year from your sponsored child.  You will also be informed of the child’s grades in school.

For more information, please visit www.plantabook.org or email info@plantabook.org.

Please make a difference in the life of a child today!

~Submitted by Brooke.

Sponsor Visitors Arrive at Galilee!

Today we  received a couple of brief emails from our visitors in Nairobi!  These are dedicated sponsors who are visiting Nairobi, but stopping by from time to time to visit their sponsored children at Galilee, WHS and HH while in the city.

Katja wrote: "Today we have been at Galilee for the first time, but very briefly. We plan to go there again tomorrow during the break....  The secretary was informed about our visit and helped us to get our children out of class to meet us. We were three sponsors, one's husband and another woman, who brought a gift to one other girl. My children had been informed that I would be coming and they were so lovely.  One gave me a big hug, my little one was very quiet, and another was ashamed to come at first, but then she seemed to be happy also."

Ina wrote:  "Today we went to Galilee - only for a few minutes - and I have met my sponsored boy for the first time. It was very exciting for all of us. He is a very nice and educated boy! We will visit him again tomorrow in break time, so we can talk to him a bit longer!"

Here are a few photos they took of the campus today. I'm so pleased to see the vegetation taking hold and providing some greenery on campus.  We weren't sure how well things would grow in their soil. The two story building in the bottom two pictures is Waddington High School.

~Submitted by Brenda

Fundraising Challenge: Help Cover Our Administrative Costs

 

One of the great things about sponsoring a child through Plant-a-Book International is that 100% of your donations (less PayPal/banking fees) go directly to support our Nairobi Kids.  Yet, while PAB is run wholly by volunteers on a very lean budget, the organization does incur administrative costs.  The biggest administrative cost incurred by the organization is the postage needed to mail sponsors letters from their sponsored children three times per year.  In addition, PAB is required by law to pay filing fees of approximately $70 per year and sustains various other administrative costs for things like operating the website, printer ink, paper, etc.  Some sponsors generously contribute to these costs by rounding up their orders in the Online Shop or otherwise specifically directing a donation to “Postage/Administrative Costs.”  The remainder has historically been covered by Brenda (the PAB director) from her own pocket.

We would love some extra help with getting these administrative costs covered!  There are several online services that allow supporters to raise money for charity at absolutely no cost to the supporter. Last year we raised about $35 from a combination of these services with only a small fraction of our sponsor community participating.  With your help we hope to see a big increase in that number for 2014!  We urge you to give the services below a try.  This is also an easy way for friends and family to support our Nairobi Kids at no cost to them.  Remember, for a small organization like Plant-a-Book International, every penny counts!

Goodsearch:  Use Goodsearch.com (powered by Yahoo!) as your search engine and they will donate a penny to PAB every time you do a search!  Simply type “Plant-a-Book” in the box labeled “Who do you search for?” and search away!  Making Goodsearch.com your homepage can make it easier to remember to use the site for your searches.

GoodDining:  Register your credit or debit cards with Gooddining and up to 6% of the cost of your meal will be donated to PAB when you dine at participating restaurants.  Visit Gooddining.com to register your cards and find participating restaurants in your area.

GoodSwipe:  Register your most frequently used credit or debit card and up to 2.4% of the cost of your total purchase at participating businesses will be automatically donated to Plant-a-Book.  Participating businesses include: Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Quiznos, Red Robin, Dollar General, Foot Locker, and various movie theater chains.

Igive:  Help PAB every time you shop online by shopping through igive.com.  Simply register with igive and specify Plant-a-Book to receive the donations.  Click on the link for the store you wish to shop at and PAB will automatically receive a percentage of your purchase.  Participating stores include many popular online retailers, such as Amazon, Target, Kohls, GAP, Pottery Barn, Overstock, Orbitz, Expedia, Nordstrom, Drugstore.com, and many more.

AmazonSmile:  Amazon shoppers can earn a donation for PAB equal to 0.5% of their purchase by shopping through Smile.Amazon.com.  AmazonSmile delivers the same products and prices as the regular Amazon site.  Simply designate Plant-a-Book as your charity of choice.

Thank you for your support! 

~submitted by Brooke