I can’t believe I haven’t posted about this before, but I’ve been working on a top-secret-until-now project with my neighbor/friend Kelly. OK, well it wasn’t exactly top secret but we had to get all our poop in a group for it before we went public. But now, our ducks are in a row and it’s time to let the cat out of the bag. (How many more animal cliche’s do you think I can use?)
My neighbor, Kelly Thoen, has founded a new non-profit agency, called Two Dollars a Day. It is an organization that will fund literacy programs for women throughout the world who live in impoverished communities. The name refers to the mark of poverty, $2 per day, for impoverished communities. Many of these communities live well below this mark-they don’t even earn two dollars per day. Could you imagine if your monthly income was less than $60?
To start, we will focus on Latin America-specifically Nicaragua. Studies have shown that when women are educated, communities are able to better their situations because women share this information, rather than keeping it to themselves. So, the ultimate goal of Two Dollars a Day is to help communities dig themselves out of poverty through education.
Kelly’s initial event to raise awareness and donations for Two Dollars a Day will be a run to Central America in 2009/2010. That’s right, Kelly is going to run from Oregon to Central America. This run is symbolic-it is her way of hand delivering her promise to help the women of Nicaragua. Along the way she will be giving presentations and doing press conferences to discuss the issues that she faces along with the women of these impoverished countries.
Now, you are probably wondering why she chose to run, and how that actually fits into all of this. Kelly has overcome many challenges in her education that have stemmed from a learning disability. Kelly found running as her way of gaining focus, de-stressing, and gaining the self-confidence she needed to succeed in her goals. So, for her, running was a tool to help her get where she wanted to go. In the same way Two Dollars a Day will serve as a tool for the women of impoverished communities to achieve their goals.
This is a lofty undertaking, but I have no doubt that Kelly can do it, and I’m super excited to be a part of it. But, to make it successful we need lots of support, in the form of donations, volunteers, and anything you can think of to help us out. Jonathan Eng of Runneng.com, a multi-sport coaching company, has generously offered his training services to Kelly to prepare her for the 3,000 miles she’ll need to run.
I encourage all of you to go to the website, www.twodollarsaday.info (site designed by yours truly), to learn more and find out how you can donate. We’ll have awesome t-shirts, running jerseys, and more that you can purchase in the months to come, with all proceeds going to Two Dollars a Day. We are also in the process of setting up a donation account through paypal, so donating will be quick and easy. We appreciate all of your support, and we hope to build a strong community through this venture.
