Year End Giving Letter

We completed our year-end giving letter campaign and got 350 letters out to friends, family, and colleagues. I've pasted the text below. For people wanting to donate as a gift to a family member or friend, we will be keeping track of names and sending out thank you notes after Christmas. Thanks for your generous support!

Dear YOU

Two years ago, while on a rock climbing expedition to the Karakoram Range of Pakistan, Lizzy Scully and I stayed in the remote village of Khane in the Hushe Valley. During our visit to the village’s two schools, we experienced a major aha moment that changed our lives. Shocked, we found feces on the grounds of the dilapidated two-room girls’ school, but a beautiful garden, four rooms, and white washed walls at the boys’ school. That evening we decided to find a way to support educational opportunities for women and girls in remote, mountainous regions of the world. Soon after, we founded Girls Education International.

Since our inception, we have successfully implemented a scholarship program for 47 girls in Liberia, provided school fees to two Nepalese girls, and established a relationship with a Pakistani NGO that will do a viability assessment for a school renovation project in Khane, spring 2009.

Our programs help girls like 18-year-old Gifty Yohn, who was just four years old in 1994 when she became one of a million refugees from Liberia’s brutal civil war. Gifty lost her father to cholera, her family home to looters and vandals, and any opportunity for an education. She and her six siblings live on less than $1 per day, which her mother earns selling fish at a stall in the local market. Gifty wants to become a nurse, but hasn’t been able to consistently pay her school fees. However, in August 2008, this promising student won a Girls Ed scholarship that will enable her to complete high school.

So why am I telling you this? Because Lizzy and I need help in order to expand and sustain our programs. Your generous donation will give us the means to do this. Think about it, for just $71 you can pay for a Liberian girl’s education for one year. Give your donation in someone else’s name as a holiday gift, and you will double your impact by raising awareness for Girls Ed and educating a girl. We know this is a tough time to ask for money, but educated girls are the world’s next great resource!

Sincerely,
Heidi Wirtz
Co-founder Girls Education International
www.girlsed.org

Please mail tax deductible donations:
The Mountain Fund*
c/o GEI
39 Madison, NE
Albuquerque, NM 87108
*GEI operates under the umbrella of TMF, a 501(c)3 organization.