Relief mission to Tanzania
Donation protected
In January, I saw a post online by the founder of an organization called Friends Together (friendstogether.org). In addition to offering regular HIV/AIDS related services, they do mission work in the Moshi region of Tanzania. I read about this opportunity to do fundraisers to collect much needed school and medical supplies and personally deliver them to schools and orphanages in July. Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world. Beside struggling with AIDS/HIV, it has one of the highest proportion of orphans in the world. Approximately 1 out of 16 people in Tanzania is an orphaned child, having lost their parents to HIV/AIDS.
The chance to do something so meaningful stuck with me. My husband couldn't take so much time off of work, and we weren't comfortable leaving our boys with someone while traveling across the world. I began to ask friends and coworkers if they were interested in joining me on this adventure. Just when I thought I wouldn't find anyone to join me, my 13 year old son, Owen, said he wanted to go! That set our plans in motion.
I am a special education teacher in an elementary school and Owen is an 8th grade student in middle school. We are both working with our schools to create fundraisers for donated supplies as well as monetary donations for textbooks. 6th grade students at my school study Tanzania all year long as part of their social studies curriculum. How cool would it be to get the students involved in collecting supplies, then being able to see the faces of the kids they were helping!
Owen and I created this page to raise money for our trip. As volunteers with Friends Together, Inc., we are responsible for covering our own travel expenses, including airfare and hotel, as well as paying the cost of transporting the donations we collect to Africa. No donation is too small! We are also collecting money to be used for textbook donations. If you would like your donation to go soley towards textbooks, just say so in the comments. Please consider helping us help them!
Thank you,
Jen and Owen Clark
The chance to do something so meaningful stuck with me. My husband couldn't take so much time off of work, and we weren't comfortable leaving our boys with someone while traveling across the world. I began to ask friends and coworkers if they were interested in joining me on this adventure. Just when I thought I wouldn't find anyone to join me, my 13 year old son, Owen, said he wanted to go! That set our plans in motion.
I am a special education teacher in an elementary school and Owen is an 8th grade student in middle school. We are both working with our schools to create fundraisers for donated supplies as well as monetary donations for textbooks. 6th grade students at my school study Tanzania all year long as part of their social studies curriculum. How cool would it be to get the students involved in collecting supplies, then being able to see the faces of the kids they were helping!
Owen and I created this page to raise money for our trip. As volunteers with Friends Together, Inc., we are responsible for covering our own travel expenses, including airfare and hotel, as well as paying the cost of transporting the donations we collect to Africa. No donation is too small! We are also collecting money to be used for textbook donations. If you would like your donation to go soley towards textbooks, just say so in the comments. Please consider helping us help them!
Thank you,
Jen and Owen Clark
Organizer
Jen Haynes Clark
Organizer
South Windsor, CT
