A birthday wish from Tariro’s founder

Join us in September at our annual benefit, and Jennifer's birthday!

As Tariro’s founder, I’m writing today with a special birthday wish, representing a unique opportunity for you to contribute to Tariro’s work, and make a direct personal connection with our students.

My birthday is coming up on September 12th, and my birthday wish is to do something simple yet special for Tariro students, most of whom rarely, if ever, receive a birthday card or gift.   For my birthday, I’d like each of Tariro’s supporters to write a birthday card to one Tariro student.  Here’s how you can participate in this initiative to brighten the birthday of each of Tariro’s students.

Step 1. Click here to choose a girl from the list of our students’ names and birthdays. The list does not represent every single one of our students, but it does represent all of the students whose birthdays we have on file.  Here are a few of my thoughts on choosing whom write to:

• Many of our students have been previously profiled on the blog, and you may chose to write to a student you have felt some personal connection with.
• However, since we also want to ensure that each girl will receive a card, you may choose to select a girl through a different method, such as choosing a girl whose birthday month you share.
• Alternately, if you are writing the card with a child, or in a school class, you could choose to pair students of the same age.

2. Get creative with a store-bought or hand-made birthday card, and with your birthday message.  You may choose to include a photograph of yourself, an origami crane, or some other small (and flat!) personal touch.  Please do not include money.  If you’d like to make a birthday donation to Tariro, you can do so instead through my birthday wish on Facebook.

3. If you are interested in receiving a card back from your student, please include a small, self-addressed stamped envelope.  We will encourage our students to choose to respond, and any return letters will be hand-carried to the US for posting by Tariro volunteers.  We don’t have the administrative personnel to run a formal pen-pal program, but we will do our best to ensure that letters written by our students to birthday well-wishers are carried back to the US and posted by Tariro volunteers.

4. Mail your completed birthday card to Tariro at:

Tariro: Hope and Health for Zimbabwe’s Orphans
PO Box 50273
Eugene, Oregon 97405

Thanks for reading, and participating in my birthday wish to brighten the birthdays of Tariro’s students!

And finally, please mark your calendars with the date for Tariro’s annual benefit event in Eugene, Oregon.  This year’s benefit event will take place the day before my birthday, from 5-8pm on Saturday, September 11th.  This wonderful evening will feature live music and performances, as well as a Bar-B-Que and silent auction.  I’ll have a detailed description of the benefit event in a coming post.  For now, though, please visit Facebook to let us know you’ll be attending, and to spread the news about our upcoming benefit with friends.