Adventure Beyond the Horizon!
Our first fundraiser organized by Ability Beyond the Horizon was a success! It is however, important to define success correctly in this case :-) I definitely made some logistical errors, but it all turned out in the end. The event was so much fun, and I was lucky to have a lot of volunteers making it happen.
- Woohoo!
To bring you quickly up to speed, the fundraiser was a field day event. The catch was, everyone had to be working with someone that was blindfolded through the activities or be blindfolded themselves. As you can imagine, people traded back and forth on the blindfolds, but both parts of the experience, I think, were equally as fun as you can see below.
- Awesome structure built by Guardian Home Inspections and Repair
- Limbo, so fun when you can't see the pole!
- Dizzy Bat! I'm not sure I've laughed this hard in a while.
Our shirts came out great! Thanks to Full Press Apparel for the quick turn around on these. They made us shirts in less than a week's time! We received so many compliments about them. I had no idea the importance of a shirt for making an event "legit". We have some shirts left over as well if you are interested in purchasing one, they're $15, just get in touch and we'll get you clothed in our first ABH gear.
- The shirt!
We made approximately $700 on the event after all of our expenses are accounted for. That's not bad at all! The attendance to the event was not great, but this is my fault for putting it on a Sunday. I totally neglected to factor the impact people going to church on Sunday morning would have on the event attendance. We also had it a little far out of town. I was warned about this, but the administration at Montford Middle School is so wonderful to work with, and they have such a nice space, I was hoping we could overcome it. It definitely played a role though. Other than that, the mistakes were close to none, and to be honest, it made for a really nice run without being overwhelmed with people. We plan to put this back on again in the fall, so if you missed it, you can make that one! If you want to see more photos of the event, head on over to our photos page! There are some really good ones taken by Michael Copeland of Copeland Productions, he's also the guy that did our great video on the front page. We love him a lot! There should be some video coming from him as well. I'll post it here when that happens!
India!
Ok, Hyderabad. We're so close, today marks exactly a month from when I expect to be getting off a plane in India. The plan is to begin work on July 2nd. It'll be me and Lauren Barr from last year. We had another volunteer all lined up and ready, but she wasn't able to make it unfortunately. This had a somewhat rippling effect in that people aren't able to get up the funding so quickly to make a trip to India. I've had awful luck with volunteers this year, I had another lined up very early, but again, couldn't make it due to finances. They've been great volunteers, but the economy and all that makes it difficult for people to pull this kind of money together. In the future, I hope that we as an organization can fully fund our volunteers, but its just not possible where we are now.
The plan is to work 3 weeks in Hyderabad, doing whatever we can in addition to giving some orientation and mobility training to teachers that work there so that they can teach their students greater independence. There's a group of parents that waits each day at Devnar School, and I'd like to work with them as well, teaching them concepts of the Expanded Core Curriculum and so forth. What would be great would be to tie them in with the parent group that is now functioning in Bangalore. Maybe Lauren can tackle that project.
After 3 weeks, Lauren and I are headed back to Bangalore to spend a week with our old friends from last year and finish up our trip. Part of the plan in Bangalore is to work with some other teachers in a 2-3 day workshop teaching some orientation and mobility skills as well as other areas of the expanded core curriculum. Going back to Bangalore is really critical because we'll be able to see what worked from last year, and what might need adjusting in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, I really enjoyed the folks at Enable India, what a great group of people.
Financials
Many people have asked how we're doing financially for the trip. As most of you following the blog know, this is an all volunteer organization. There are no salaries paid out anywhere. The money we raise currently goes entirely to supporting the trips we're making to help with visual impairment education globally. Right now, we can make the trip possible, but not entirely where I'd like to be. I have enough money to get the plane ticket and the visa, Devnar School has agreed to host Lauren and I, so that our lodging should be covered. Enough money means that we can make the trip happen, but I'll have to take the bank account back down to nearly nothing. For any of you in business, you realize this is not a good idea. So, I'm asking, if you are still interested in supporting our efforts, please lend some support. You can send a check to:
Ability Beyond the Horizon 5789 St. Joe Rd. Tallahassee, FL 32311
Additionally, you can donate through the website and all that information is found here: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/get-involved/
Regardless, we are going to India again! I'm so happy that we're able to do this 2 years in a row. My hope is to get this project funded with larger resources like grants in the future, and would welcome any ideas you have in that area.
Thank you so much for making this possible. You may never meet these kids, but I promise, they'll know of your kindness.
~Mickey
ps. if you are reading this blog, then that means you probably haven't signed up at the new website. It would help a lot if you could. Just go to: http://www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/blog/ and put in your email address. Super simple. Thanks!
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