It has been an interesting year! As many of you are aware, we made the decision in July 2008 to serve with the U.S. Peace Corps, and have since been living in rural Jamaica. Peace Corps operates with one major goal in mind – building capacity in order for those being helped to begin helping themselves. We, as volunteers, adhere to an adage you know well: Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed his family for a lifetime. After eight months living/working here, we are becoming more realistic (and creative) in our ideas of teaching men to fish.
We would like to purchase a digital projector for use in educational settings, such as school health lessons, community training events and organizational strengthening within our agency. Rather than pursuing a traditional grant, which could take up to a year, we are first reaching out to those people we know and respect from home.
With that, we ask you to consider donating toward this venture of ours. We hope you will see this as a way of investing in all the good that can be accomplished here in Jamaica—and are excited at the thought of sharing our experiences and successes with you. Here’s an overview of the project:
- Dell digital projector......740.00
- Surge protector................25.00
- Extension cord.................25.00
- White flat sheet................10.00
- total cost...............$800.00
You should also know that we intend to donate the digital projector, extension cord, surge protector and large white flat sheet (screen) to a worthy organization upon our completion of work with Peace Corps. I repeat—we do NOT intend to keep it for personal use. We believe strongly in capacity building within our local community, which means training people in use of technologies that will allow them to improve their own situation. We will either train a staff member at our Primary School or a leader in our Farmers’ agency to operate and maintain the projector after our close of service.
We know that this year has been financially challenging for many folks and we completely understand if you choose not to contribute, at this time. We chose to send you one of these requests not because of your financial status, but because you have been a great sense of support and encouragement to one or both of us in the past. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers as we stay the course here in Jamaica. Peace Corps service has not been what we necessarily expected, but it is proving to be a challenge worth taking. We wish you all the best in the coming months and thank you for being who you are!
If you DO wish to contribute to this project, please respond in any of these ways:
• Go to www.Paypal.com and “Send Money” to us at Josh.Hunter@gmail.com.
• Send a check to this address: Josh Hunter, 4099 N Mt Juliet Rd, Mt. Juliet, TN 37122.
• If you’d like to help, but have additional questions for us, please call or email (contact information above).
Sincerely,
Josh & Jesse Hunter
