British Airways Lands in Uganda

Well....not literally. But Jane's friend George, who is a British Airways pilot, did donate her luggage space to bring toys and clothes and other items to Kabalagala. Here's a few pictures of George and her recent trip....



The items had come a long way. Jane had gathered them in Cincinatti, gave them to her mother on a visit to France, who passed them along to her sister living in England, who worked to get these things into George's hands between her bizarre pilot's schedule. And then the next time George flew to Uganda, she brought them with her.



Often, we find our problem is not that we can't get the basic necessities--we just have a problem getting them to Kabalagala, given the high cost of shipping. We need to work hard at our own distribution network. Let us know if you know anyone traveling to Uganda!

Paddy is always a great welcoming committee!

Mail Call! Letters from Uganda!

Our first batch of letters from the sponsored kids arrived in bulk!! It is so exciting to get them, and they were so sweet! Pretty amazing feeling to know my sponsored child was thinking about me, and doing well in school to boot.



SPONSOR A CHILD! e-mail Carrie Watson, head of sponsorship, at ihugsponsor@gmail.com to find out more!

In Memorium

age: 4 years old
cause of death: malaria

it breathes new energy into our efforts with this sad event.

Helping Hands

i.HUG was in overdrive last week. In case you were wondering, our annual meeting went perfect. (And the presentation worked out just fine...what was I so worried about?) Amazing to get the majority of our board and volunteers together, and plan for the next stage of i.HUG.

Perhaps even more exciting was the brainstorming session Jane and I had with the very creative team at LLNS. LLNS is a global ad agency that specializes in healthcare, and they had already expressed interest in helping i.HUG to reach their goals. But when Jane and I went in there on Friday, they came ready to figure out how! Most of the ideas centered on expanding i.HUG's marketing and fundraising infrastructure. But there were other ideas that crossed all committee areas--things like researching sustainable projects in Africa, or sending top-performing employees to Uganda to teach their skills. I also really liked the focus on creating annual events. It allows us to grow even more confident about the viability of our project, and get more kids off the street and into school!

here i am again, and it's midnight...

And I'm finding myself wrapped up in creating another powerpoint presentation. It takes me forever, because every time, i get totally distracted. i start thinking about how it's like in uganda, and i think about how little it takes--a pittance, really--to change somebody's life. and then hours pass like moments, and the months the same, and the next thing you know the following day is i.HUG's first annual meeting! With 7 in-person attendees, and another 10 or so on the phone line, it should be quite the event.

for now, I'm stuck somewhere in between planning for the next decade of i.hug and trying to figure out how to resize pictures so that i can e-mail the presentation to everyone. glamorous, really.

I'm also including our first bit of PR. Enjoy and we'll catch you up on the other side.