October 28th, Turn $500 into $750, Turn Green Paper into Good Works

This Wednesday (the 28th) we have an online gift matching opportunity. Any amount between $50 and $2,500 you give to Amizade will be matched at 50%. This is a rare opportunity and one I hope you’ll take. This is the first time – ever – that we’ve had a matching gift opportunity like this, so I hope you’ll forgive me for taking more than a brief moment to tell you about what we’ve been up to. Instructions on how to give and have your gift matched are at the bottom of this post.

Sometimes when I talk about Amizade I focus excessively on how we’ve been able to make the numbers work over the past few years – we’ve balanced the budget, expanded, hired new staff, and kept administration costs below 20% - but of course what really matters is the effects we have in communities and in individual lives. We’ve also seen continuity and improvement in those areas during the past year.

• Through cooperative efforts with West Virginia University, Central Michigan University, and Road Scholar (previously Elderhostel), we offered several programs in Germany and Poland that promote Holocaust Remembrance, Anti-Genocide Efforts, and historical landscape preservation. The recent rise in holocaust denial and genocide elsewhere in the world illustrate the vital importance of this programming.  

• In the Navajo Nation, we worked with Duke University's Duke Engage initiative to develop and establish a college preparatory program. Only 36% of Navajo college students graduate college in six years compared to 56% of the US population. The program addresses this challenge directly and will be offered again in 2010.

• In Brazil, we helped develop community centers in Alvorada and Livramento, near Santarem. Community members use the sites to offer courses, have sports activities, and offer cultural activities. The centers serve more than 100 children and more than 75 families. A recent study by the University of British Columbia suggested more than 50% of youth in Santarem report violence as their primary concern, making these community centers especially important as places for safe activities.

• Through cooperation with Carlow University, we offered a national conference on global service-learning attended by more than 70 individuals representing several states and institutions of higher education. The conference helped staff and faculty at other universities improve their institutions’ capabilities to offer critical, reflective, community-driven academic service-learning programming that stimulates students’ thinking on global citizenship.

• In Montana, for the second consecutive year, we offered a volunteer program for Dartmouth University alumni, who contributed to the historic and environmental preservation of the OTO Dude Ranch, an icon of the American West and America’s first dude ranch.

• In Puerto Morelos, Mexico, Amizade cooperated with Regis Jesuit High School of Denver, Colorado on the beautification of a kindergarten classroom and facilities.

• Through cooperation with the University of Idaho’s Upward Bound Program, Penn State – Abington, and Academy of the Sacred Heart of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Amizade supported Washington, D.C. programs to combat hunger and homelessness. Hunger and Homelessness have been on the rise in Washington DC since 2001, and have only gotten more acute in the current economic downturn.

• In Bolivia, Amizade built on more than twelve years of cooperation by completing classroom walls at Viloma Primary School, installing a bathroom at the Hogar de Ninos Orphanage, and supplying volunteers at The Ceoli Center for Children with Disabilities and at The Millennium Casa Cuna Orphanage. The Bolivian Government provides orphanages with only the equivalent of 47 US cents per day ($0.47) per child, so the volunteer support and material support that comes with it are sorely needed.

• In Ghana, Amizade cooperated with West Virginia University to continue efforts on the community library in Jukwa, Ghana. When completed, the library will be the first public library outside of the capital city of Accra.

• Through cooperation with Central Michigan University, Westfield University, Duke University, and West Virginia University, Amizade supported peace and reconciliation-related programming in Northern Ireland, both in Belfast and Ballycastle.

• In Tanzania, Amizade continued Women’s Rights and Water Harvesting efforts, ensuring women and children have improved access to water, empowerment, and education. Those efforts were recognized in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, WVU’sDaily Athenaeum, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania’s Advocate.

In these and other ways, Amizade connected more than 300 volunteers and service-learning students with community-driven initiatives around the world. The community outcomes I mentioned above are important, but also vital to all that Amizade does and stands for are the changes in each individual life that result from these experiences. Regardless of whether their careers are in public health, development, teaching, law, business, or something else, Amizade participants are strongly affected. They regularly report working in their own lives after programs to continue to support Amizade’s efforts to build a better world. They devote themselves to the ethical actions necessary – through work, life choices, and civil society – to build a more just, sustainable, and inclusive world.

Please support our efforts this year. This matching opportunity is nothing short of incredible and can substantially leverage your philanthropy for a strong and growing cause that creates positive social change at the community and individual levels.

To take advantage of this matching opportunity, please simply:

1. Go to the Pittsburgh Gives website and create a LogIn now.
2. Return to the Pittsburgh Gives website promptly at 10am on this coming Wednesday, October 28^th, LogIn, and make your gift. **Important** - The Pittsburgh Foundation has announced it will refresh its website at 9:59 am on the 28^th, so that no one can LogIn before 10am and simply wait for 10:00. It is important, therefore, to LogIn precisely at 10am.
3. Find “Amizade” using the search box in the top right quarter of the page.
4. Click “Amizade”
5. Click “Donate Now / Donate to Nonprofit” in the top right quarter of the page.
6. You will have just leveraged your philanthropy considerably! Thank you! 

Thank you for taking advantage of this opportunity while it’s available. I hope it came through in my post above, but if it didn’t: Please understand that giving to Amizade is giving to save lives, empower through education and opportunity, form friendships across cultures, and build a better world.