By Merritt Frey, Executive Director

Want to give back over this holiday season? We have the easiest-entry project ever for you - write notes of encouragement to our students in Mali! We provide instructions and you write short notes (and add photos, stickers, etc. if you like), scan the notes and send them to us. Learn more and sign up here.

We will be delivering a new batch of notes to students when they return to school in January, so we need your help to hit our January goal of 500 notes!

Notes are just short messages to encourage our students as they work hard in school. Your notes will:

1) let our students know someone is rooting for them, which is wonderful because our kids face a lot of barriers to education that make life tough,

2) will be exciting to receive for a young person in a small, remote village, and

3) provide a fun way to practice their English skills - one of 8 subjects Mali middle schoolers have to master.

The Notes of Encouragement Campaign is a great volunteer option if you are just volunteering alone or for groups such as school classes, youth groups, church groups, or community service organizations. The volunteer need is on-going, so you can volunteer for an hour or for 10 hours...it is totally up to you. This is a really fun project if you like to draw, but it is not required. The campaign is perfect for any age as long as you can write and have readable handwriting. We have found at ages 10 and up do great with the project.

Our goal with the Notes of Encouragement Campaign this school year is to get every Mali Rising student a note of encouragement....help us make that happen!

Learn more and sign up.