Note to self: Take Slippers

Every Christmas, Santa brings two sets of slippers to my stocking. I look more forward to this gift than anything else. I love slippers. I wear them throughout the house, to walk outside, I wear them thin within six months. Hence, I need two pair at Christmas, June comes quickly.

And I learned Tuesday night, I get to take them to Bosnia.

Regular old Saturday-NOT!

Let’s see . . .
two loads of laundry,
pick up the mail,
pick up milk,
Oh, and that’s right,
Talk with the Cabinet Minister to the Vice President of Bosnia!
I wish I could say I wasn’t nervous. But really, I was a mess. Our project manager, Megan, had all these smart ideas of what to address. I just felt like I should apologize for not being fluent in Bosnian. Or knowing how to say their names correctly, or how to address government officials.
And then I could apologize for not exactly knowing what our plan is-I mean I’m a planner. When I have nothing else, I have a plan.

Drumroll, please…

Well, its official: we’re going to Mostar! As a direct result of the truly overwhelming financial support of our families, friends, and colleagues, we have determined that this trip is once again financially viable. Boo-ya! We have currently raised $6000 toward our $8000 fundraising goal and feel confident that we can raise that last 2k before our December 15th deadline. Please continue to donate and to spread the word about our trip. The sooner we reach that goal, the sooner we can get back to the business of planning this thing and focusing on the needs of the families we’ll be working with.

You know your people when . . .

If you’ve ever wanted to experience people staring at you in bewildered disbelief, talk about the importance of sending a speech pathologist to Bosnia to work with families that don’t speak English.
The conversation goes kind of like this:
“We’re really excited to send a team of speech pathologists to Bosnia! We’re going to work with children with autism.”
“Huh . . how ’bout that . . . “
Then you may get one of the following:
“Do you speak Bosnian?” no.
“Do they speak English?” no.
“Do the kids speak?” maybe not.
“Okay. Good luck with that.”

We Are Humbled

It takes a significant feat to silence a group of SLPs, but we’re darn near speechless as we reflect on the fundraising flurry of the last week. The dream that was in danger a week ago now has new life. The financial contributions of our friends and family have given us hope, and I, for one, feel cautiously optimistic that we really might be able to do this thing. We’ve created a new page where we’ll be recognizing each of our generous supporters, so check it out!

I’d like to take a moment to highlight one group of kind folks who are helping us on our way: our fellow Hello Foundation contractors.