Hello Aura's House Donors, Friends, and Supporters,

I am writing you from the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Rau Village in Tanzania. I'm here working with Cross Cultural Solutions (my second trip with them...first one was in India in 2000) volunteering my skills to help a local community where most people live on under $1 a day. If you'd like to see my pics or read about some of my adventures, please feel free to visit: http://www.livejournal.com/users/kpalana

I just wanted to let you know that we are under $600 away from reaching our goal of raising enough money for a new home for Heidy and Maria Rosa Rojas and their family in Honduras. Anastasia Yecke (currently volunteering HER time as well in Honduras) pulled off another amazing fundraiser on June 17 in Miami and our total now stands at $4906!

We already have some great new projects up our sleeves for the future, including a water well project for an entire village in India and a way to help kids in Tanzania and Zambia get much needed funds to attend school. In Tanzania, for example, it takes $100 to send a child to school for one year of secondary school. As you can imagine, most families can't afford that and only 5% of girls ever even make it to secondary school.

I'd like to thank my brilliant William Paterson University web student, Christina Sidoti for keeping the site running while I've been away. Also thanks to donor and supporter Courtenay Honeycut for pledging her time on the future projects. If you too are interested in helping out on the site, please send me an email.

Oh, and last but certainly not least- Aura- our inspiration for even starting the site...has moved into her brand new brick home with her family in Guatemala, thanks to all you donors. Check out the images Chrisitina put online here .

Thanks again for your help, and if you know anyone that might like to be a hero and help us finish the Rojas house and get to our goal of $5500, please forward them this.

Hugs from Africa and THANKS as always!

Sincerely,
Kristen Palana