Steve, Thanks for putting it in perspective. All too often we only sort of think about these things. I mean, we think, "I'm going to donate ___ to ___." Without ever really letting it sink in what life really is like there.
cookbooks are really hard, let me tell you that! Unless you are willing to put them together youself and bind them, sending them off is not worth the small profit you get. We did this with our ladies ministry one and a half times, didnt get enough people the next time we tried.
I can go one better than that and can post it here. Paul says it twice, in the second letter to Corinth recorded in the NT: Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: "He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little."
We are fund raising like crazy for our athletic programs at our charter school right now. So far we've had a few b.b.q's, spaghetti dinner, charging to get into our games, snack bars at the school, we have a cookbook that we just got proofed and we'll get the cookbooks to us after the first of the year. Just keep in mind that while it's a worthwhile thing your doing, there are so many people that are losing their homes, jobs and ect. That they may not have as deep pockets or can be generous at all and let your kids be aware of that so that they don't get disenchanted with the fact they may not make a ton of money right away, but at least they are doing their best to get their goal.
This interests me (for if I go to India)! This dinner was a "to go" dinner? How did she package them? How did she advertise? I'm looking at this thread with interest! Steve---a lot of what you describe in Haiti was what it was like in many places we went in Kenya! Though Nairobi is a modern town, they still have high gates and fences around property, with large shards of glass imbedded in the top of each to keep people from climbing over! The women in the villages carry large jugs and packages on their heads and corral and work with the children. When a man and his wife walk somewhere, he walks ahead of her carrying nothing. She has the huge pot or package on her had, and carries other things. The children carry their younger siblings. The roads are in horrible shape! Yes, many foreign countries are in bad shape and any help for them is soooo needed!
I was once waiting to catch a flight from Surabaya to Jakarta, an internal flight in Indonesia. At the airport in Surabaya, a man entered the waiting area with his four wives. All the wives were dressed in their black robes with just a narrow slit for their eyes. Plenty of children were running around, and the women were struggling to keep them in order. The wives were carrying all the heavy suitcases, and the man carried nothing. He offered no help with the children, and he took one of the few empty seats for himself. In my heart, I so wanted to offer my seat, but I knew this would have caused offense. I also wanted to offer to carry some bags, but this would have caused offense too. In the end, I found an excuse to get up from my seat (I don't recall now, but I may have wandered over to view the departure screen). After a while, one of the women took my seat. Mind you, plenty of people overseas look at our faith and wonder how so-called church leaders can live in mansions and fly in private jets when so many church members are poor and millions of Christians around the world lack enough food to eat. So, we have plenty of planks to remove from our own eyes.
I know you said earlier in this posting that your church is small. Would you be able to run off copies of a cookbook in the church office? If so, you could put the layout together, run the copies there, and mail them out from there as well. You can print only the number that you have ordered that way, and the cost of printing and mailing is taken care of before either is done. See if the church is willing to back you in your cause. A fundraiser done from the church may have a more solid base. Most likely someone within the church will know about what is needed to keep it legal as well. Name your child/children as the organizers. Any community you gather recipes from (your church, here, another site, or blog) will be willing customers for the cookbook. Just be sure to include their name and/or ID with the recipe. Be sure to let me know if you are going this route. I have a lot of recipes already typed out on my PC and could attach the entire file to an email. They are already in catagories. In any case, good luck with this cause. And as my mom once said to me, "You must be doing something right if your children have turned out this way!"
thanks everyone Great ideas! Abby gathered 60 lbs of change and went to the bank and opened a "Haiti saving account" After we sent the change thru the machine she had $719.26!!! Really good start! My dad told the story at his company christmas party and she got more $! The manager at the bank is a personal friend of our family and she said if i emailed her some pics of Abby at the bank she would put a display up inside the bank and possible put it in the paper! This is so Cool! Abby made 100 homemade dog cookies and bagged them for keith to sell at work! LOL Anyways......it going well! Amy, GA
HI! Sorry, we don't have a dog, or I would get some of those dog biscuits! I sent you info on the cookbook idea to your email. Truly, it was NOT hard at all. And a lot of the companies will send you a free kit to start working on it. When I did it, I ordered all the kits and we picked the company as a committee....they, of course, went with the most expensive company....but they were wonderful to work with. I have the file from our cookbook, still, and you're perfectly welcome to all those recipes. ALSO, you are welcome to pilfer any non-copywrited (i.e. from other companies) recipes from my two blogs - www.in-the-kitchen-with-krista.blogspot.com and www.goingglutenfree.blogspot.com ). HTH.
Yes, you could do that or you could purchase some inexpensive recycled products and sell those at you fundraiser. I saw some recycled post-it notes, water bottles and mugs at a place the makes crystal awards (which would be great if you have a sporting event as a fundraiser). Hope you come up with something good! Check out ablepromotional-dot-com to get more ideas.
