By Merritt Frey, Executive Director

I’ve been meaning for a while now to post an update on a wonderfully fun campaign driven by one of our best supporters, Tim. Tim had a vision — he wanted to see a world map in every one of our schools. He turned that vision into Maps for Mali.

Together, Tim and I set up an easy donation page with a request for donations of $20 per map. Tim wrote a compelling email message to his friends, and then….wow! The message went out on a Friday, and by Saturday we had exceeded our goal. Tim decided to go for it and ask for donations that would allow us to deliver two maps — a large, laminated map of the world and one of Africa.

By Monday, Tim’s merry band of friends had raised more than $1,000 — enough for our two map goal!

The school year is currently wrapping up in Mali, but we already delivered maps to six of our village schools. See the photos above. Tim and I plan to deliver the remaining maps to the rest of the schools when classes restart next fall. Watch for stories from that trip!

Like Tim, we believe maps expand the mind and help kids connect themselves with the larger world and dream big! If you are interested in supporting maps in the classroom, you can still donate to Maps for Mali. We’ll use your donation to add additional maps that inspire curiosity, exploration, and learning.

Our gratitude goes out to Tim for his vision, and Tim’s friends for their generosity! (If you’d like to set up a similar fundraising effort, contact me at merritt@malirisingfdn.org.)