By Merritt Frey, Executive Director
I don’t know about you, but more and more these days I’m looking for ways to be of service and feel connected to the larger world. With more time at home and alone, maybe it has made me value our interconnectedness a bit more….or maybe after a year at home I just need something DIFFERENT to do with my evenings! Do you feel that way?
If you do, we can help. This spring, we’ve redesigned a bunch of our volunteer efforts to be safe during the pandemic and easy to do from anywhere around the country. Check out the current campaigns and find something that feels right for you, your family, or your community:
Flashcard Campaign — This fun campaign asks volunteers to create French/English flashcards for our students. We provide instructions and word lists created by our teachers in Mali. You create colorful, fun cards and send them to us. Great for kids (as long as they have decent printed handwriting) or adults. Fun for 1 person or a group. Particularly fun if you like to draw! Learn more.
Notes of Encouragement Campaign — In this campaign you write short notes of encouragement to our students, and decorate those notes if you like. Writing 10 notes takes about 60 to 90 minutes for the average volunteer, and they can be done while you’re watching a movie or chatting with friends! Great for students or adults and a truly fun group or family project. Learn more.
Read to Mali Campaign — In this campaign you will read a short children’s story on video for our students. Your stories will be used to enliven and diversify English language classes for our kids (English is one of 8 subjects required by the Malian government). Learn more.
Menstrual Kit Campaign — This campaign is the only one that requires some specialized skills. If you can sew — we need you! And if you can ask for donations…we need you even more! This campaign is making menstrual kits for our girl students. Each kit give a girl back about 20% of her time in school because she can be in the classroom rather than at home during her period! Contact Merritt to get involved.
There are quite a few other ways to help out, so if nothing here appeals to you just explore our volunteer page. We’d love to have your help!
