Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Yubaraj

I'm back from Manitoba and as I look outside, it appears it's going to be a gorgeous day here in Vancouver. In my last blog entry from Manitoba, I had written about how thrilled I was to see Kevin Sites link to a project at GiveMeaning from his Hot Zone blog.

For those of you who don't know Kevin or the Hot Zone, you can learn more here

Kevin had written a story about a young boy named Yubaraj who was supporting his family by working as a parking attendant in Kathmandu. Kevin wrote about Yaburaj as a boy who accepts his responsibility but wishes to return to school.

Christine Egger, a reader of Kevin Sites' post, was so moved by the story that she decided she wanted to do something about what she had read. She found GiveMeaning and started a project to raise funds for his education.

She had raised a bit over $1,000 but the page had been pretty inactive for several months and was becoming time to close the page down to new donations.

But then, last week, we got word that Kevin was going to post an update on Yubaraj and link to Yubaraj's project page at GiveMeaning.

Sure enough, he posted this update and the response has been fantastic! In the last few days donations have been pouring in and donors have been emailing their own friends encouraging them to donate as well. The Yubaraj project is now 50% of it's goal and still going strong!

Through many phone calls and emails, I feel like I got to know Christine and I know how important helping Yubaraj is to her. She has made this her mission and to see this outpouring of support for Yubaraj through GiveMeaning makes me happy for both Yubaraj and Christine.

For GiveMeaning, Kevin linking to Yubaraj couldn't have happened at a better time. We are now days away from launching what is basically a whole new version of the GiveMeaning website. Without spoiling the surprise, I will say that the new site is designed around the deep belief of mine that people are most likely to do something in response to a story the one Kevin wrote. GiveMeaning wants to facilitate that desire in an even more direct way than we already do.

The site launch date has become a bit of a running joke but we're determined to get it as perfect as we can before launching it. It is coming within the next couple of weeks.

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Comments:
the Yubaraj project is so inspiring, thanks for the update!
 
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