Tumaini Volunteers in 2014

If you have been following my blog, you know that I am recapping the 40 things I did in ’14. I am up to accomplishments made by our nonprofit organization, Tumaini Volunteers.

I certainly can’t take credit for any of these. This is my daughter’s organization and I am just there for moral support. Since she is the chairman of the board and I am the vice-chairman, I guess my job is to let her boss me around.

This has been a lot more work than I had ever anticipated. Government forms, bylaws, business plan, audits, I don’t know, the list seems pretty endless. And what with all of that, it feels as if we are really not working much towards our goals of helping those living in poverty in Kenya. I just want all the paperwork out of the way and I want us to have our volunteers signed up for a trip to Kenya and I want them all fired up to work on a project which will bring sustainability into the lives of families in need. When I say, “I want, I want, I want”, I sound so selfish, don’t I?

Anyway, these are some of the concrete things we accomplished in 2014:

*          apply for tax exempt status

*          do a large scale fundraiser for Tumaini

*          set up Etsy shop

*          make $1000 selling our Kenyan crafts

*          get tax exempt status

That doesn’t sound like much. In between all of that, though, we worked on our business plan, constantly hounded people to volunteer their time, and held a friend-raiser in addition to the fund-raiser. I personally set up and attended, I think, five sales. A few times my sister helped, but I did a few of them by myself. The crafts we brought back from Kenya reside in the suitcase my daughter took there twice. With all the toting of this suitcase which I have done to all these sales, I feel like the suitcase has put on more miles around northern Wisconsin than it has going back and forth to Africa twice. 

In the coming year, we hope to finalize our business plan, solicit some larger contributions, sign up a team of volunteers to return to Kenya next fall, plan that trip and take it. 

If anyone, anywhere out there, is interested in getting involved in any way with Tumaini, PLEASE let me know. You can go to our website for more information, www.tumainivolunteers.org or check out our facebook page.