What a Difference a Month Makes!

I have a few updates on my trip to Africa. First off I would just like to say that I am so incredibly honored to have shared my experience with 23 amazing people who continue to impress me with their generosity every day. After you read this I hope you will see how amazing they are as well!
When we came back from Tanzania we were all filled with the desire to do more. We were warned that this would happen and told to start small and think of things we could do that were not overwhelming so we didn't stress ourselves out trying to come up with something to do. My group didn't take that advise. We were all about doing things that would make a big impact. Because we continued to work together, tackling something big didn't seem so bad.
Within the first couple of weeks one participant, Harriet, reached out to one of the schools that had no water. She paid their back bills and paid their water bill for the next couple of years going forward. Wow. That was pretty amazing!
We've been back for a little over a month now and last week another participant, Ben, reached out to our group and said he had spoken to someone at another school and we needed $675 to get their back bills paid, new pipes installed, and to pay their water bill for a year going forward but the catch was we needed to get it by next week. The day the email was sent out I had back to back meetings with no time to respond with my donation. By the time I was done & ready to respond later that afternoon, the money had already been raised and we had successfully completed getting water restored in school #2. That's how awesome the people I went with are. In fact Ben turned away more than one of us so we already know that some of us will be donating to the next project.
We have a lot of things that we would like to do. Sometimes the communication is a little slow in coming but we are working on it. I finally got a contact today at another school without water so hopefully we'll be working on water for our 3rd school soon. There are many other projects in the work and we hope to have a fundraising site so people can donate money to help us as well.
I don't think any of us realized the impact that we can make with so little effort. We just changed the lives of hundreds of kids for $675 that we raised in one afternoon. That is completely amazing to me. I can't wait to go back in January and see what changes have taken place. And I can't wait to see what we can do going forward. People ask me why I don't just donate the money I am spending on the 2nd trip but it's not just a trip. It's an ongoing experience. I can now be a leader for the next group and say look at what we've done. 24 people came together and this is what we did and this is what you can do too. Then maybe someone else will go back and get the next 24 and so on and so forth. Not to mention the amount of people that I have talked with this trip about who are considering doing a trip or donating money. It just keeps going and going and going.
I went on that trip thinking I would make a difference by giving kids some shoes and have a little fun while doing it. I never expected that I would become a voice and change their lives even more. My first group will have a special place in my heart forever but I can't wait to go again and share this with even more people!

If you would like to help out with the January trip you can donate to my fundraising page. If you would like to help out with further projects please let me know and I will contact you with our next thing!