And the winner for Chanel sunglasses is...

Chrystal!! Yay!! Chrystal, you will now be battling the sun in style! Thank you, every one who helped finish the two fundraisers that benefitted from this raffle! Jessica will now have a wheelchair (and a small deposit toward a bed), and Maria & Ullysette will have their food, school books, and beds!!!

This is how the winner was picked using random.org. These were each person's numbers:

Robyn 1- 5
Chrystal 6-45
Holly 46-50
Inga 51-70
Wilfredo 71-90

The winning number was #25!!

On a side note, Jerry only needs $18 to complete his fundraiser! If you can help, please donate here

Raffle Extended Until Friday

We are SO close to finishing Maria & Ullysette's fundraiser... So, The raffle for the Chanel sunglasses has been extended until Friday. This is in hopes that we can get this fundraiser completed by the end of the week. We only have $40 to go!

$1 gets you one raffle ticket (and the person who donated over $400 is not in the raffle, so you do have a chance).

To enter, make your donation here

Jessica will now get her NEW Wheels!!!

Thank you, one and all!!! Jessica will now get her wheelchair!! How exciting is that?!

Lisa was working on getting another raffle item for Jessica's fundraiser. Instead of the person donating the raffle item, they finished off the fundraiser & then some!!! Her fundraiser has now been over funded!! Yay!! She has other needs that were noted in the special needs break down, so the extra funds will not be wasted.

Lisa's raffle is still on until Tuesday morning as stated before. If you would like to enter to win the Chanel sunglasses, by donating to Robyn's fundraiser. Her fundraiser only needs $60 more!! That means there are 60 additional chances to win the sunglasses!! $1 gets you 1 raffle ticket, but you must act quickly- the drawing will be help bright and early tomorrow morning!!

Can you Help? Only $65 left!!

This fundraiser only needs $65 more!!! Who can help finish off this fundraiser and give these children a bed and food?

If you can help, here is the link. Thank you every one!!!

Three Active Fundraisers

Carla's fundraiser only needs $148 more!!!

Jose Manuel & Yamileisy's fundraiser needs $410.40

Maria & Ullysette's fundraiser only needs $74!!!

Look at how close we are to finishing Robyn's fundraiser!! I know we can finish it off this week- probably even today!! Stephanie's fundraiser only needs a little over $100, too! After one of these fundraisers funds, I will launch the next one. The next one is only for $100, so we are moving right along!!

If you have a fundraiser coming up, please make sure your donations match up with what you need to have donated before your fundraiser begins. I had to stop my inventory of donations because the end of the year got hectic, but I will be back counting again in a few days. I want to make sure that everyone is doing their part to help everyone else. The 3 people with fundraisers coming up soon whose doantions I have not checked yet are:

Tamara

Cherise

Kate

Please double check your donations and make sure that you have already donated your 25%, so that your fundraisers can go off as planned.

Also, I have been adding more items to the web store. I will go more in depth about the web store in my next post. Check out the store and you will see many new things! I am adding more candy & games a little later in the week. Here is the store link

To Help Maria & Ullysette

We are SO close to getting Robyn's fundraiser completed! We only need $145 more!!! Dana has donated an item in order to pull in a $80 donation!! Thank you so much, Dana!!

Now, I have something else to pull in a few more donations. I have this Barbie Kelly doll. She is an angel with brown hair and brown eyes. I have 2 of them! They are available on a first come first served basis. They can be given to any sponsor child that is in the CI program. The doll will be shipped to the child at the time a package is sent to that community center for the summer reading program. To get one for your child, all you have to do is donate $10 to Robyn's fundraiser. The first two people to donate $10 (or one person to donate $20), send me your sponsor child's info, so that I can get the dolls to them (the dolls each include a small comb to comb the doll's hair).

Here is the link for the fundraiser:

http://www.firstgiving.com/betterlatethannever

Current Fundraisers

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on our current fundraisers. We have 2 (not including the 2 big ones for homes). Once we are close to completion on either one of these, I will add an additional small fundraiser. I have a few that are $200 and below, so they should go quicker. I just want to get these two closer to completion first (by that I mean only $100 left).

We have Maria & Ullysette's fundraiser that only needs $245!

And, Yamileisy and Jose Manuel's fundraiser that needs a little over $400.

The good news is we don't have very many of these $500 fundraisers left. 2010 should be an easier year, since the fundraisers will hover around $300. Plus, with the profit from the web store sales going into these fundraisers, they should move quicker. Of course, it won't be a HUGE profit because I wanted to keep the prices in the store closer to reality of what they cost to buy & ship. The more people participate, the more chance we have to earn something significant for the fundraisers.

Please consider giving to one of the 2 fundraisers above, and get it written off on your 2009 taxes.

And the winners for Day 12 are...

Holly & Heather Griffin! You two won the $20 Amazon gift card! Yay!! Please let Robyn know if you prefer a joint $20 card or two $10 cards. Here is what Robyn said:

I used random number generator again, and it came up #15. So congratulations go out to Holly & Heather, holding lucky ticket #15!! :)

Thank everyone for donating- it is greatly appreciated!! :):)

1-20 Holly & Heather
21-25 Tracy
26-30 Lindsey
31-40 Del
41-45 Sara
46-55 Heather M
56-65 Jim & Mack

On the 12th Day of Christmas...

my sponsor gave to me...

12 grains of rice!

Today's raffle will go to help Maria & Ullysette. They need school books, a bunk bed, wooden cabinet, a big sack of rice, and other groceries.

The raffle prize is a $20 gift card to Amazon.com. Not only does Amazon have just about anything you are looking for, but you will get the $20 instantly after winning the prize!

To enter the raffle, make your donation here (remember $1 = 1 raffle ticket)

How are we measuring up?

We are doing so terrifically on these fundraisers!!! If you haven't had a chance to pat yourselves on the back, go ahead and take the time to do that now :0) This is how it stacks up for the current 3 fundraisers:

Maria and Ullysette's fundraiser target is $535. In only one month's time, $190 has been raised for this project!!! That is incredible! Only $345 to go!

http://www.firstgiving.com/betterlatethannever

Jonathan's fundraiser target is $541. In two month's time $243.10 has been raised! Only $297.90 to go!

http://www.firstgiving.com/igp4jonathan

Gema & Crystal's fundraiser target is $391, & $151 has already been raised! That leaves only $240 to go!

http://www.firstgiving.com/icecreamigp

Remember that you can help these fundraiser by purchasing magazines/cookie dough with the magazine fundraiser link on the right. Or, how about purchasing the Christmas cards for your sponsor kids through the card link on the right. Both of these links provide income to our fundraiser. We didn't sell any magazines or cookie dough last month, but Christmas is coming, so now is the time for these great products!

You don't have to buy the items to help the fundraisers, there is another way to help. You can do as Alice did, and just spread the word! She was able to generate sales, and then, able to tell me how she wanted the revenue disbursed. Go to the link, and from there, you can send an e-mail directly to anyone on your contact list.

Any revenue you generate, you can decide where you want the money to go. So, the more people you tell, the more opportunities for money going to your fundraiser!

Our New and Improved Necklace/Lollipop Fundraiser!

Another fundraising day! I am worn out!! All week I have been working on preparing for this garage sale/ fundraiser. I placed an ad in two local papers, sent notifications to my homeschool co-op group, made a few Craigslist postings, and placed signs out with balloons.

This morning, the girls and I had "Friday School". We got up bright and early and headed out to school where I teach the 2 and 3 year old class. I spent 4 hours with the 8 little munchkins, teaching them about Kangaroos and reading several books including "Katy No-Pocket" and "Good Night Moon". Then, at noon, we rushed home, ate lunch really quickly, got in the car, placed signs out on the street, drove back to the house, unloaded everything out of the garage into the yard and driveway... We were all set up by 1PM, and we already had 5 customers!! Whew! It was exhausting, but good to see profit finally! We were only open for 4 hours today, but tomorrow will be 9 hours of hopefully non-stop action!

This is how I changed up the fundraiser portion. I had already placed a sign out last time showing who the fundraiser was for, but this time I:

1- Put the sign with pictures on the PAYING table where I was sitting.

2. Put the lollipops and necklaces on the same PAYING table

3. Changed the price of the necklaces from $5 to $2 (and decided I would front the cost of the supplies, so that my girls would see the fruit of their labors)

All of that made a big difference, not to mention the advertising brought a lot of people out to begin with. There were two sweet young girls that I remember in particular. They liked the necklaces, and thought what Jaden and Morgan were doing was "so cool" (their words). They bought a necklace each, but then, came back to buy 2 more necklaces because they said it was "too cool" what the girls were doing, and they wanted to be a part of it! So, $8 from them!

Then, I had my friend buy 3 lollipops for her girls, and two other people bought 2 lollipops a piece... for a total of $3.50

The fundraiser raked in $11.50. I know it's not much, but I am not disappointed. Tomorrow will be a longer day, and I am hoping the very sweet "necklace girls" will tell their friends about the "too cool" fundraiser and come back tomorrow.

I haven't actually put the funds in the bank yet because I need change for tomorrow, but so far, this is what I have put into the fundraisers out of the $11.50 earned today:

$3 to Robyn's Fundraiser

$3 to Su's Fundraiser

More to come ladies! I am dividing the funds into the 3 current fundraisers, so stay tuned for more funds on Monday~ And, I will let everyone know the outcome of it tomorrow!

Project #13 is complete!!! Thank you!!!

Thank you, dedicated sponsors!!! You ROCK!!! Now, I am moving the fundraiser on to project #15!! I know what you are thinking... What about Project #14? Well, my Jonathan's fundraiser is #14. Why I love him to pieces, and I do want his fundraiser to fund eventually... I think it is only fair for Robyn's fundraiser to go back in line. So, let's try to get hers funded first. I will be introducing a new fundraiser in a couple of days, and once Robyn's fundraiser funds, I will put Jonathan's back out there.

Please support Robyn. Sweet Robyn who has been so patiently waiting for her Special Needs Breakdown that was never requested from the field!!!

http://www.firstgiving.com/betterlatethannever

Apology

Dear faithful sponsors,

I would like to apologize on CI's behalf. This fundraiser business has had it's rocky moments. Most of the moments such as waiting for special needs breakdowns and thank you letters and pictures, have been blamed on the "field". It takes so much time to get the things back from "the field". Well, let me tell you... A request was put in for Robyn's child Wilmer MONTHS ago... We waited and waited... I contacted Melissa @ CI to see what the delay was, and she said that they field asked for an extension. This was July 3rd, after we had already waited for over 2 months to get it. This is exactly what Melissa said: "The field needed an extension on Robyn’s child Wilson." I didn't think anything about the name goof up at the time, but now it is bugging me. This is why: The CI office never made the request to the field!!! We have been waiting on a breakdown for this one since May, only to find out it was NEVER ever ever ever requested!!!

Poor Robyn's fundraiser has been pushed back and pushed back, and if we hadn't requested a new request for a different child, we would still be waiting on a fundraiser for her!!!

So, for the breakdowns that CI NEVER requested, the long turn around time to get the breakdowns, and long lapse before getting the thank you and pictures, I apologize!!!
Because of the lack of correspondance, appreciation, and dedication, (all on CI's end) we will get through this list of fundraisers we have and call it a year. I think that at least half of the people who started out participating in this project are frustrated. I am not one that gives up easily, so know that~ I have been fighting for months now. (I won't get into all of the details)

I am putting Robyn's fundraiser in as #15, since hers was supposed to start before Barbara's. Once Barbara's funds, I will put Su's out. It will be a cluster of a mess, I know... But, there is no good way to fix CI's mistake. As of today, Robyn's delayed fundraiser is now live. See below for the link:

Project #15~ Maria & Ullysette (Robyn & Ryan)
http://www.firstgiving.com/betterlatethannever
Project #16~ Crystal & Gema (Su)
Project #17~ Maila (Steve)
Project #18~ Adriana (Candace)
Project #19~ Yamileisy (Dee)
Project #20~ Nikhat (Jennifer) (Jennifer, please see my e-mail about this one and send me the break down, photos & write up, so I can set up the page)
Project #21~ (Stephanie)
Project #22~ Jerry (Wilfredo)
Project #23~ Joyce (Heather G)
Project #24~ Maria (Holly)
Project #25~ Ariela (Camille)
Project #26~ (Tamara)
Project #27~ Sabrata (Cherise)