Wednesday, November 28, 2007

First Donations Received!

Howdy!
David LaMotte, the co-founder of PEG, a talented singer/songwriter from North Carolina, a dedicated peace activist and good friend, officially kicked off our fundraising initiative with a concert at Sewanee (Eric's college in Tennessee) on Friday, Nov. 16th. Good news: The concert was beautiful, fun and loved by all who attended. The Great News: By the end of the concert, we had collected our first round of donations that will go directly toward the building a school in the Guatemalan village of Chacaya:
$31 !!!!

David, Jason and I were ecstatic to receive the charter donations to this effort and make this project a reality. So begins the ambitious fundraising campaign to give $20,000 of help towards Guatemalan schools. Let this be the beginning of a successful charity drive!

Which will be more difficult: riding our bikes across Canada at an average rate of 100 miles per day, or meeting our fundraising goal? Leave the first challenge for us to overcome, but you can help us with the second!

The Adventure Begins...

Greetings, one and all! Our sincerest thanks for your patronage to this blog, and keeping up with all the preparations for our trip. For those of you who haven't checked out our Official Website, you'll find much much more on the actual project, our motivations, and the change we are trying to make at www.canadacrossing08.org.

But here's a quick overview of why we have this blog: We are two people in love with cycling, education, and life; the idea that the things we love can be used to make a significant positive change in the world is an idea to which we are devoting the next year of our lives. We are seeking to raise $20,000 for building a school in the village of Chacaya in Guatemala, through the great non-profit organization PEG (Proyecto para las Escuelas Guatemaltecas, or the Guatemalan School Project). 3,800 miles to raise $20,000 to build a school for 135 Mayan children.

If this project resonates with you, we hope you consider supporting us! By donating (directions on how to do so at our website), asking questions, commenting on this blog, or emailing us.

We will use this blog to announce milestones in our journey before the actual journey, i.e. fundraising updates, reflections on our goal and our purpose, funny stories from our training rides and fundraising efforts, etc. We will update and keep it interesting as often as possible!

Best wishes,
Eric "Spoke-legs" Keen and Jason "Pedal wrench" Haney