Saturday, September 2, 2017

This year we are here in October

It is October so Sandy and I must be in Iringa.  Wait, October???

Normally Sandy and I work in Iringa in February, March, and/or April.  This year we waited until now to travel to Iringa.  So what is different this year?

Last year my Rotary club (the Rotary Club of Lakeville) sponsored a $200,000 International Rotary grant for Iringa Hope.  You may recall that Iringa Hope had to raise $75,000 for this grant.  These funds were then combined with funds from 8 local Rotary clubs to make $116,000.  The District Rotary organization then added in $16,000.  Finally, the International contributed $70,500.  These were added to $2,500 which had been raised in Iringa making a total of $205,000.

As a part of this grant Sandy and I needed to be in Iringa to join Jane Fatukubonye, the President of the Morogoro Central Rotary Club, to look at books, make some village visits, and award the funds!  We will be here now until the 25th of the month when we journey back home and file reports with the International Rotary organization.

Needless to say there is a great deal of excitement in Iringa.  With these new funds we can now make loans to another 500+ families.  When the funds are all distributed and the increased membership in our SACCOS counted up we expect that Iringa Hope will be reaching about 20,000 people.

Also generating a lot of excitement is the completion of 7 new Integrated Development Centers.  We reported on these earlier this year when the buildings were completed.  Now, with the first year of sales from the new AMCOS warehouses underway, and the new loan facilities in use; people at these locations are becoming more and more excited about the impact these buildings are having.

In the coming days Sandy and I will be filing reports on our visits and activities.  If you would like to read about what we are finding here, go to our web site and read our filings.  We hope to be making our reports every few days or so, so return from time to time to see what is new.

Blessings

Tom

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