April Showers Bring...the tax deductible season of giving!!!

April Fools! Instead of the witty, insightful personal commentary you so silently associate with your furtive forays onto this blog (joke's on me there), today you will find a sincere request for financial contributions to help fund our youth leadership camps in Ukraine. Kindly look at a calendar, and you'll notice that in exactly one week we land on April 15th. What better time than now to make a tax-deductible gift that not only helps spiff up the figures in your household budgetary records, but also brings joy and peace to the world? Am I exaggerating?

Probably, but allow me to elaborate...

In addition to my primary TEFL assignment as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kozyatyn, I have become involved with a working group of volunteers called the Gender and Development Council (GAD).

Every summer, GAD, in partnership with local Ukrainian organizations, organizes two summer camps for Ukrainian youth, ages 14-17. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and Camp TOBE (Teaching Our Boys Excellence) provide a unique opportunity to gather 40 girls and 20 boys from different parts of Ukraine to participate in a camp dedicated to learning about gender issues, leadership, and team building. Camp topics include “Project Design and Management,” “Counter-Trafficking and Domestic Violence,” “Healthy Lifestyles and Body Image,” “HIV/AIDS Awareness,” “Human Rights,” and “How to GLOW/Excel,” in combination with fun leadership and team building exercises and excursions.

This year, in order to include more youth and increase the sustainability of the camps, GAD and our partnering organizations are planning two GLOW and one TOBE camps. Two camps will take place in the eastern town of Kreminna, and the other camp will be held in the western town of Kolomiya. Holding camps in both regions of the country will make traveling easier for campers and will give us the opportunity to work with more Ukrainian organizations.

We are lucky to be working with Ukrainian partners who are eager to help make these camps a success, but we are still in need of funds to help make these camps a reality. Through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, we are asking friends, family, and local businesses back home to help us cover costs for these camps.

In order to make these camps a reality, we need to raise $6,601. Only $110 sends one Ukrainian student to camp for the entire week! Please consider making a tax-deductible donation in order to help empower Ukrainian youth to become the future leaders their country needs. Every little bit counts!

You can make a donation at the following website:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=343-170

Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for helping to empower Ukraine's youth!

Sincerely,

Kathleen (on behalf of the GAD Council)


P.S. If you do choose to donate, please shoot me an e-mail to let me know so I can thank you personally. As the website is currently set up, we are not able to see our donors' names until after the grant closes. Thanks again!!