Let's rock this

Care to join in on our little venture to get blankets and warm clothes to a pair of war-torn villages before winter arrives?

What we want: *Gently-used* blankets and clothing, shipping materials like boxes, money for shipping

Target: the villages of Tortiza and Mejvriskhevi, which were bombed extensively during the recent war; they are very close to Gori, the town that was effectively destroyed

Participants: returned Peace Corps volunteers (myself included) in the US and in Georgia, residents of the local village Kheltubani who act as fact-finders and contacts, the Megobari Project, Kartli XXI (an education NGO), donors of St. Mary's County, Maryland

Project Plan:

Serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Georgia for the last two years, I made a lot of connections with host family and friends in the communities where I worked, and I was received warmly by all my colleagues and neighbors. As such, it seems fitting that instead of blowing all my time watching Project Runway, it would be better to organize a drive to get winter supplies to Georgians in bombed-out villages before winter sets in.

With extensive publicity and multiple donation locations, we will collect gently-used blankets and warm clothes from donors in southern MD, as well as shipping money and boxes. By early October, all the boxes will be packed and in the mail, destined for the headquarters of the Megobari Project, an association of former Georgia Peace Corps volunteers who will store the donation until it can be transferred to an NGO in Gori which will distribute it to needy families in Tortiza and Mejvriskhevi. All leftover money from the shipping fundraiser will be donated to Kartli XXI to buy school suppplies for local children affected by the war.

How to Donate:

Very soon (check back here for exact date information, which as of now depends on the date that the local newspaper prints the publicity article) there will be donation boxes placed at a series of locations around St. Mary's County where you can bring blankets and warm clothing to. There will also be an address and a Paypal account where you can send money for shipping. Alas, the organization that returned Georgia volunteers are creating for the purpose of sending aid to Georgia will not come into legal existence until this project is finished, so my only option is to request that donations be sent to me. I understand that some people may not be comfortable sending money to an individual, but rest assured that:

1) I handled $3400 worth of grants in Georgia with nary a penny embezzled.
2) All monetary donations will be listed on this blog with amounts, unless the donor requests otherwise, and the shipping expenditures and Kartli XXI wire transfer transactions will be detailed here.

So watch this blog for the next week, and we'll get this project started!