Distribute Donated Clothes & Goods in Rural Panama

How do we love our GlobalGiving supporters? Let us count the ways:

• 58: the number of unique donors for this project;
• 65: the total number of donations to the project;
• $322: the amount of matching dollars we earned from three Bonus Days during the 2013 Winter Open Challenge;
• $5180: the total amount raised since we joined GlobalGiving in November, 2013;
• 646: the total number of boxes full of donations we now have ready to send to Panama;
• 40 ft: the size of the container we can now ship to Panama thanks to YOUR donations; and
• 30%: the matching amount we can earn on top of EVERY donation made during the Bonus Day that is occuring TODAY (February 12) to jump start fundraising for the second half of our project: the donation distribution trip.

While the numbers represented in our Valentine’s “sonnet” may not seem like a lot to you, for our small organization the progress they represent is a VERY big deal. We could never have gained so much momentum this quickly without the success of our participation in the 2013 Winter Open Challenge. We could not have attained that success without your help. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. We know that our beneficiaries will echo this sentiment.

As you may have gathered, LARN has been very busy since the Open Challenge ended. In January, we moved the bulk of our boxed donations to a storage facility near the Port of Baltimore in preparation for shipping. We also started the paperwork required to arrange for the container shipment and clearing it through Customs in Panama. This past Saturday, we held our final sort-n-box event to pack up the last of the donations that will be included in the shipment. Aside from surpassing 600 total boxes of donations during that sort-n-box event, we celebrated another milestone in our success: warehouse space to hold the event indoors, pizza and snacks for volunteers, paper goods (ie: plates and cups), resealable plastic bags, and a moving truck (with professional driver) to transport donations to and from the event were all provided as in-kind donations by local businesses and private donors. Best of all, in the coming weeks, we will load and ship a 40-foot container to Panama, thereby completing the first half of this project. We can then turn our focus to fundraising for the distribution portion of the project.

We hope that you will continue to support LARN as we work to complete this project. Your support can come in many forms. You can share information about LARN and this project with your network of family, friends, and colleagues to help us grow our network of supporters. If you are a member of Facebook, we invite you to “like” our page and “share” our status updates and photos. You can provide an in-kind donation from our wish list. Of course, as we work to fund the distribution portion of this project, financial contributions are also welcomed.

Consider giving your loved ones a more meaningful Valentine this year: make a gift donation in their name(s) during today’s (February 12th) Bonus Day. For one day only, your donation will be matched at 30% by GlobalGiving until matching funds run out. “He who gives early gives twice,” -- matching began at 9 am EST, so hurry and send your Valentine a gift they won’t soon forget (and neither will we). 

Links:

• Find LARN online!