majimazuri.org

The Yummy Coffee fundraiser went amazingly well!

Alison and I were out there from about 10am - 7pm.  With the help of 7 other volunteers we handed out nearly 150 brochures and 150 flyers.  I believe we had about 50 jewelry transactions and raised $415 in sales from the Maji Mazuri crafts.

We also sold 20 lbs of coffee and raised about $250 from those sales.  Our grand total for the day was $667.37 raised for Maji Mazuri.  Wahoo!  And we may have raised even more money with online sales.  But perhaps even more than dollars raised, we raised a lot of awareness and spoke with several people who were super interested in learning more about Maji Mazuri or sponsoring a child.

A big thanks to Luisa for helping us look polished and professional out there with new t-shirts, flyer, and brochures.  They're not a finished product but she worked overtime to create something that we could use for this single event.  THANKS, LUISA!!  You are amazingly talented.

And a SUPER BIG THANKS to Alison for coming up with this fundraiser idea and working like crazy to make sure it went off without a hitch.  You're the best!!

Now, on to the next fundraiser! :)

Jacquie confirmed the Maji Mazuri fundraiser date with Yummy Coffee for Sunday, August 15th!!! Yay!

The Yummy Coffee organization is dedicated to raising awareness and funding for autism research.  They are particularly interested in supporting and learning more about the Children's Emergency Centre in that it houses and educates children with special needs, including some children with autism

The owners of Yummy Coffee offered us their location in New York for a day (August 15th) to raise funds for Maji Mazuri.  It is wonderful to hear we will be able to add even more crafts to the Yummy Coffee fundraiser! This is great news!

Alison Bauman graciously spear headed this fundraiser.

“The pleasure to assist Maji Mazuri is truly all mine,” she said. “I thank you, and all those working for Maji Mazuri for all these many years for being MY inspiration. Your work truly demonstrates that each of us really can make a difference!”

The Event is taking place at 11:00am - 6:00pm at Yummy Coffee in South Street Seaport, NY.

Alison and I will take pictures of the event to be shared after the event on the site and on Facebook. If you are in the area, please stop by and support us:)

On November 20^th, 2009 I became a mother for the first time.  There’s no way to describe how having a child changes your life.  Literally, from one day to the next I began to see the world differently.  I now see the miracle of tiny hands wrapped around my finger, I see the danger of driving above the speed limit, but mostly I see the love that every mother has for her child.  I understand that this unyielding unconditional aching love I have for my son is shared by mother’s everywhere, in any country, of any race and any color.

More than 1 billion people still have no clean water to drink as the international community falls far behind in its plan to halve their number by 2015, two UN agencies say.

UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) say six years after the goal was set, 1.1 billion people still have no access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion lack reasonable sanitation.

"The world is in danger of missing targets for providing clean water and sanitation unless there is a dramatic increase in the pace of work and investment between now and 2015," the agencies said in a joint report.

UNICEF and WHO estimate that, in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals, infrastructure must be built to provide sanitation services to a further 1.6 billion people and better access to drinking water for another 1.1 billion.

"The situation is becoming particularly acute in urban areas, where rapid population growth is putting great pressure on the provision of services and the health of poor people," the report said.

"A huge amount of work will have to be done simply to maintain the proportion of those living in cities with access to improved drinking water and adequate sanitation."

From 1990 to 2004, 1.2 billion people gained improved access to drinking water but this was almost entirely offset by population growth.

About 80 per cent of those lacking access live in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Asia and Southern Asia.

The agencies define clean water as water from a pipe, public tap, borehole, protected dug well, protected spring or rainwater collector.

The number of people without basic sanitation - toilets that flush into piped sewers or septic tanks, composting toilets or ventilated pit latrines - has fallen by only 98 million since 1990.

Sanitation is available to just six in 10 people worldwide.

The other four in 10 "are obliged to defecate in the open or use unsanitary facilities, with a serious risk of exposure to sanitation-related diseases," the report says.

Some 4,500 children die every day from the consequences of unsafe water and inadequate hygiene, according to WHO's 2005 figures. - Reuters