So, this happened today...
It's no secret that I've been crowd funding this trip/project from its inception. I'd set the goal at $3,500 which was exactly what I needed to pay for the logistics of a 23-day trip to Tanzania, including flights, lodging, government fees, program fees and ground transportation.
I woke up this morning to find out a friend had donated $150 and a little while later another friend gave $100. Those donations, along with 42 other folks, brought the total raised to $3,280. What they couldn't have known then was that I'd begun to make contingency plans for not meeting goal.
I had a triage list of prioritized items that could be scratched off the plan, if it came to it. I didn't want to give any of those things up as every part of the planned itinerary was tied to volunteerism or support of animal rescue, conservation and anti poaching efforts.
Sometime before I sat down for lunch today I saw an email notification on my phone. It was from GoFundMe, the crowd funding site I used for this campaign. When I opened it the message header read: Congratulations on reaching your goal!
I kinda looked at that blankly. A smile slowly formed on my face as I realized it meant the triage list could be thrown out.
I sat down at the computer and went to my campaign site. It read the total raised was $4,280. Immediately I thought I must be on a different person's campaign page. There's no way someone randomly dropped $1,000 into my fundraiser.
I looked again. I was on my page, my campaign and that $1,000 donation was no typo. GoFundMe - the site itself - had donated to my trip.
"Holy shit," I said rather profoundly. I went from wonder what to cull from the trip to thinking about what more I could do. It was an overwhelming wash of positive motions. My eyes welled up with tears.
The past few hours I've been figuring out what to add back in. I know that I have enough funding now to pay school tuition for more than a couple of children of AIDS widows, who live a difficult existence on the edge of starvation. It costs $19 a year to send kids in Moshi to public school. That $19 is a huge amount of expense for a person whose annual income is less than $500.
During my trip I'll pay an entire year's worth of tuition for their children. That's not simply charity, either. Literacy is a gateway to employment opportunities - ones that will get them out of extreme poverty. It also means those kids won't be easy pickings for the illegal ivory trade or sex trade. In other words, an educations means they'll have a chance at a much better life.
As filled with gratitude and joy as I am now, not having to do this trip on a bare bones budget, my eyes remain focused on a greater prize - one of making a personal difference by being there.
The new burst of funding also means (for certain) I will get to walk with park rangers with wild elephants, the same ones they protect from poachers.
In 102 days I will begin this journey. It took a whole lotta folks helping out to successfully get this idea from a concept to a reality. I am grateful to a great many people. I could not have done it without you all!
Asante sana,
- Rick
