Heading Home . . .

Well, today is our last day in Ghana. Tonight we head back to London, pick up our winter luggage in England at Bruce's Aunt's and then we are off to Ontario for the Holidays. We have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the people and culture of Ghana while we have been here but after a few days in the big city of Accra, we are starting to look forward to heading back to the snow and cold of Ontario. There are so many stories and photos (100's!!!) to share and we can't wait to post all about our trip once we get back to Victoria in the new year. The most exciting news is that our amazing team of 18 Canadians helped to build 4 houses from the ground up in the village of Kofiase and we were honoured to be part of the dedication ceremony which involved presenting the keys for two of these to two families. So until we post again with photos and stories, take care and Happy Holidays - thank you so much for helping to make a difference to four deserving families in Ghana - their homes are just beautiful thanks to your support!

Counting Down the Hours . . .

First, take a second and click this link: Our Group. I know I have mentioned this a few times but I'll give it one last plug. Before we leave Ghana we are hoping to send a blog update to you all, however it is unlikely we'll have very quick or lengthy access to the web. So, we plan to simply send an email to our blog which will make a post automatically and if you are signed up to our group (28 of your currently are) you will automatically receive the update. Right now we have a giant list of emails we copy and paste each time we send a message which may take too much time to do, this way it should be a bit easier . . . at least theoretically! Okay, plug done. On to even more important things:

THANK YOU!

We really don't feel like we say this often enough (I know, you don't want to get hourly emails from me . . .) but seriously we are very thankful for the support each of you have offered to us during our fundraising and preparations for this trip to Ghana.

Thanks to your support we have now officially surpassed our goal and a total of $6,035.43 has been raised!!! Thank you so much! Thank you - and yes, thank you again!

So, yes, we do in fact leave on Sunday! We are pretty much prepared but as always there are lots of last minute things to do. The good news is that we have the basics, so everything else will be a bonus if we remember to pack it!

We also learned our first lesson about life in Africa - be flexible, take it as it comes - last week Rick and Suzanne told us that the community we will be building in has changed. Now, instead of building in Fiankoma, we will now be in Kofiase. You can click here for some great info on this community from the Habitat for Humanity Ghana site. Kofiase is quite close to Fiankoma and is North East of Kumasi if you look at our previous map (sorry it isn't labeled on this one though).

There are about 5,000 people who live in Kofiase which is largely a farming community where people grow such crops as yam, cocoyam and plantain and other tasty eats like tomatoes, okra, beans, garden eggs, yam, maize and cocoa. (Did we mention we are both really looking forward to the local food???) The temperature should range between 26 to 40 degrees Celsius, a far cry from the 1 degree temp we saw here in Victoria this morning!

In Kofiase, Habitat for Humanity has helped 22 families build their own homes since 2003. It is likely we will work on several homes while we are there, which will likely include helping to make and lay bricks, do simple carpentry and helping to finishing the homes with a cement/mud stucco. We will also spend time getting to know the people in Kofiase and will likely visit schools, go to church, perhaps meet the local chiefs and hopefully play some soccer!

We have learned that in the Akan language, people are often named based on the day of the week they were born and it has been recommended to us by several people to make sure we know which day of the week we were born. We have done our research and found that Bruce was born on a Monday and would be so named, Kwodwo (which sounds more like Kojo in Akan) and that I was born on a Saturday and so my name would be Ama.

Well, that's it for our last post on this side of the ocean! Thank you again for all of your support and stay tuned for updates before we leave Ghana (hopefully) and upon our return to Victoria in January (definitely) - we are hoping to arrange a photo slide show evening of sorts so we will keep you all posted.

Now, back to the packing . . . talk to you soon,

Brandy & Bruce

18 Days & Counting!

We're now just 18 days away from our departure date - we can hardly believe this is all coming so fast!

Bruce and I will be away for almost two months and volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Ghana for over two weeks will be the central point of our time away. There are so many things to prepare for and we made some progress over the past two weeks while we hosted family visitors leading up to the Thanksgiving long weekend and my big 3-0 birthday (I'm 99.99% there in accepting the fact I am now 30). Last Thursday we received our tourist Visa's from the Ghana embassy in Vancouver (it was VERY fast!), are both up-to-date with our various shots and are slowly collecting all of the things we will need to take with us.

Yesterday, we heard from our team leaders, Rick and Suzanne, with confirmation about the community where we will be volunteering - Fiankoma is a small community near the town of Kumasi in Central Ghana's Ashanti region. Here's a map (click for a larger view):


As we were doing some web research about Fiankoma last night, we came across the website of a Habitat for Humanity International volunteer who participated in a build last summer in Fiankoma. Feel free to check out Dave's page here - you will find photos of the community, Dave's daily journal entires from the trip and some information about what a typical Habitat work day is like etc. What a great resource for us as we prepare ourselves for this experience!

One very exciting aspect of our travel is the fact that we have secured flights which allow us to bring a third piece of luggage each, at no cost, as long as they contain either school or medical supplies. We have started a collection of items we will be taking with us and will gladly accept donations of any of the following items:

School Supplies: pencils, erasers, notebooks, coloured pencils, inflatable globes (available at dollarstores), pencil sharpeners, chalk etc.

Fun & Games: soccer balls, pumps and patch kits (because apparently in Rick's words "the soccer fields are gravel and eat balls for breakfast"!) bubbles, paper for drawing - we will also gladly accept suggestions of games we can play with the kids, such as duck duck goose.
Medical Supplies: boxes of latex gloves and dressing supplies (bandages & tape etc.)

All of these items will be donated to Habitat for Humanity Ghana who will then distribute them to members of the community in Fiankoma and other Habitat affiliates throughout the country.

If you have any connections to donations of these kinds of items, please get in touch ASAP as we will be accepting these items up until Monday, October 29 so we have lots of time to plan our packing before our departure on November 4.

Another thing we will be bringing comes from an idea of Kate's that I'm totally loving . . . creating a photo album for us to take with us - something to share photos of our city and its scenic, temperate environment, how we get around (on bikes with plenty of rain gear), what we eat (lots of salad, a bit of chocolate and sometimes some chicken wings!) and who our families are (apple and beef farmers, nurses and a whole gaggle of nieces!). I'm excited about putting this all together to share with both our team members and our new friends in Fiankoma.

Well friends, this brings us close to the end of this friendly blog post . . . but first, we wanted to say thank you SO much to each and every one of you! You have been so supportive in sharing in our excitement and our fundraising efforts! Thank you, we could not have embarked on this journey without you.

And so, it is with great pride that we share our current fundraising total with you . . .

Drum Roll Please . . .

To date, you have helped us to raise $5,054.43 !!!

This total is amazing and means that we are now just $945.57 away from our $6,000 goal. We are so close, and I know we can easily beat our goal now with less than three weeks to go!

So, now is the time to make your donation online, mail us your cheque or volunteer for our last fundraiser (which will be our third Candy Blitz next Friday, October 26, by the way - drop us an email for details) - your donation is helping to build much needed safe, decent, affordable homes in Ghana's Ashanti region. You can find complete details on how to donate here.

Well guys, this chick is heading to bed with dreams of Ghana in her head - goodnight and thanks again for all of your support!!!

Brandy

PS For those of you who have not yet signed up for our Google-Group to receive automatic updates each time we post to our blog, you may want to sign up. We will have VERY limited access to the internet, let alone electricity, once we arrive in Ghana and may only be able to send very short and quick emails so posting to this blog will be the fastest way for us to communicate with many people. If you would like to add yourself to our list, please click here - looking forward to sending you updates!

And the Fundrasing Keeps Rolling On!

Just a quick note since we've had a very busy two weeks with the long weekend, a big birthday celebration and lots of guests - but, we wanted to update our total and let everyone know we now have less than 25% to raise! Today, with a kind donation from Carolyn and Peter, we hit $4,569.43!

Thank you to everyone who has mailed donations in, donated online and gave generous donations in lieu of gifts for my birthday - we truly appreciate your support and hope you'll keep them coming, we're so close!

We'll do another update soon once things slow down a bit - right now though we are awaiting the arrival of our tourist Visa's from the Ghana embassy and are counting things down as we only have 24 days until our departure!!!

We're 64% of the Way There!

We're getting there!

We have received several donations over the past few days and we're up to $3,842.98!!

It was an especially nice boost to receive a box of rolled pennies from the Habitat ReStore in Victoria (thanks John & Margot!) as well as a generous donation from the Habitat for Humanity Victoria Board. In addition to supporting our trip to Ghana, Habitat Victoria has also committed to build a home in Argentina!

We are very grateful for the support of the local Habitat Affiliate and are looking forward to returning home and hosting a photo slide show presentation to share our experiences with the board and our other donors as well.

In terms of other news, we have received some more direction about our travel Visa's and this is making it all seem so much more real! For the past two months we have been very focussed on raising awareness and planning our fundraising events and so now the reality that we will actually be traveling to Africa in just 8 weeks is setting in!!! We have met many people who have lived and volunteered in Ghana so now we are eagerly connecting with them to learn all we can about where we are going. We have been reading books (such as: The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinki, Lonely Planet West Africa and The Famished Road by Ben Okri) checking out travel blogs and learning all we can about Ghana.

We have yet to hear exactly which village we will be in, but we do have a good sense of what our building experience might be like based on photos we have seen of some other Global Village Builds.

First, here is a photo of a Habitat Ghana family in front of their family home. In Ghana, many rural homes are wooden structures with mud walls and bamboo or palm thatch roofs and provide shelter for the entire extended family. Roofs must be replaced often to prevent collapse of the house and heavy rains can destroy mud foundations or cause entire walls to collapse. Families continue to occupy the remaining part of the house which is therefore very crowded.



The homes we will build will likely be made with earth and cement bricks, made as seen below, and will have cement floors and aluminum roofs.




Houses are typically two rooms and will likely include a kitchen and shower as well as a toilet which may be attached or detached from the main dwelling.



We have also learned that we will likely be volunteering in a Habitat community which may look something like this, which gives you an idea of what the finished homes look like.


All of these photos are from the Habitat Ghana website and looking at them again, gets me thinking about all kinds of things . . . how will we pack everything we need, will we survive the heat, will we be fit enough to build with these blocks? Mostly though I am excited and can't wait to meet and get to know our team mates from across Canada, I can't wait to try Ghanaian food and I can't wait to meet the families we will be building alongside!

Thanks for helping us get there everyone! We're getting close to our goal, thanks to each and every one of you!

Brandy

Mmmm BBQ!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to our M&M Meat Shops Building for Ghana Charity BBQ!

A BIG thank you! to Richard and his staff at M&M Meats Shops and also to Jon and his staff at Cobs Bread for their generous support of the BBQ! We were serving up some delicious Tasty Burgers and hot dogs on delicious Cobs buns!

Sharon, Alison & Chantal serve up a hot dog, assembly line style:
BBQ --> Bun --> Serving Bag - nicely done women!

We also have to send a big thank you out to our friends who volunteered to help out by flipping and serving burgers and hot-dogs and enticing donors to our table while spreading the word about Habitat for Humanity and our house building trip to Ghana. Thank you Al, Alison, Chantal, Crystal, Emma, Gerry, Jen, Sharon, Mike & Zeta - you guys ROCK!!!

Crystal and Zeta were working hard to cut the buns Cobs Bread donated.


The well gloved Al & Alison were serving up some delicious BBQ!
He could have used these later on when he helped us clean
the grill - what a trouper!

We met a few people who had some wisdom and advice to share about traveling to Africa which was awesome as always! I think we also recruited a few more skilled trades volunteers for Habitat for Humanity Victoria which is always a good thing.

Gerry our Master BBQ'er

Chantal, our Mistress BBQ'er

Overall the weather was great and we couldn't have asked for a warmer, sunnier day in September - the clouds held off and we had loads of happy customers.

Little Emma, and I don't think our other volunteers would take offense
if I said she was our cutest volunteer, did a great job of handing out coupons to
our donors - here she's taking a well deserved hot dog break.


Jen came by to do some street side advertising.
Here she is hiding beside her impromptu sign!

A special thanks also goes out to our new friend Mikhail who came by with his parents after karate. He enjoyed a hot dog and soon he was our biggest supporter, telling every passer-by what we were all about and that a hamburger or hot dog was "just a donation" - great job Mikhail - thank you!

Our new friend, Mikhail

All in all, it was a great success and we were able to raise $624.86 - thanks Victoria! That officially puts us over the half way point for our $6,000 goal - we're getting there!

BBQ Madness!

Well, I'm off to bed but I hope to see lots of you tomorrow at our big BBQ!

If you're in beautiful Victoria, join us from 11am - 3pm at 3637 Shelbourne Street at Cedar Hill Cross Road. A special thanks to Richard and the team at M&M Meat Shops and Jon and his team at Cobs Bakery for their support!

Not only can you buy a tasty hot dog or hamburger, but you can also buy your own Habitat House for a $2 donation at both the M&M Meat Shops and Cobs Bakery locations at Shelbourne Plaza. We're hoping each store window will be filled with these, creating our own little Habitat Village ; )

M&M Meat Shops Building for Ghana Charity BBQ

M&M Meat Shops Building for Ghana Charity BBQ

11am-3pm Saturday, September 22, 2007

3637 Shelbourne Street (Shelbourne and Cedar Hill X Rd.)

Come on out on Saturday to enjoy some burgers or hot dogs and don’t forget to tell everybody about our barbecue!

Thanks so much to Gerry, Chantal, Zeta, Crystal, Alison and Al who have offered to volunteer for the event. If anybody out there is interested, we are still looking for volunteers to come give us a hand on Saturday flipping burgers and hotdogs and to help with set up and tear down. We especially need a hand with a vehicle to transport some tables and supplies to the event.

We hope to see you there!! And please spread the word.

The 2^nd Garage Sale was a success!!

We raised $236.58!!

Thank you very much to the Victoria READ Society for donating all the garage sale items. Also to Mike and Megan for helping out with pulling all the desks, chairs and tables out of the shed that held all the goodies donated by the READ Society.

We have now raised 40.6% of our $6000 fundraising goal!! Thank you to everyone who has been sending their donations in, it has been very exciting to check the mail every day. For those who still wish to donate, you can click here to donate online now. Every bit helps and gets us closer to our goal – thank you!

Garage sale success!

A very big thanks to everyone who donated items and helped out setting things up on Saturday. The grand total raised was $1,039.88!!!

Jen & Sharon - our early rising helpers!

We met a lot of people on Saturday who were very supportive of the Habitat cause. We were also able to spread the word about the work that Habitat does both internationally and in Victoria. I think we recruited a few volunteers for the build site and also a few donations for the ReStore for sure.


So many people were also happy to have a coffee and a cookie and drop some change in our collection jar then browse the donated items. We received a lot of great items and this sale’s success was most certainly a result of a living room full of donations we received from so many people - there were tons of furniture and big ticket items too which helped to raise a lot of money! Even if nothing was to their liking some people would still give a couple of dollars to support Habitat for Humanity. One guy was driving by and saw the banner, he quickly (somewhat safely) pulled over, jumped out and gave Brandy five dollars! Wow! We also met a gentleman from Ghana who didn’t need anything either, but also gave a donation. Another kind lady shopped and shopped and purchased a big mirror which we helped her move into her car - she was so grateful she gave us a whole loaf of delicious Patisserie Daniel seed bread!


Of course the sale had some ferociousness to it. The early birds came early to no surprise and were looking for good deals. As I was bringing out the boxes full of books, the bargain hunters (and dealers!) eagerly began rifling through them as I put them down, which kind of reminded me of feeding cows back on the farm!

So are we crazy to be doing this all again this Saturday? You bet! Brandy has been working at the Victoria READ Society filling in on reception for a few weeks and they are in the middle of a move after 30 years in the same location. While a large number of the items left in the very nice old house are not needed, there are some that will be needed in the new space, and yes they are at the back of the garage. So, in return for offering to help them move some items we have the opportunity to host another garage sale with proceeds going towards our fundraising efforts. So, if you’re in the market for desk, bookshelf or other office type items, this is the sale for you!

_____________________

Building for Ghana Fundraising Garage Sale, The 2nd

Saturday, September 15 - 8am-11am

720 Linden Avenue
(between Richardson and Rockland - NE of the Cook & Fairfield intersection)

Desks (various sizes and styles – wood, laminate & steel)
Filing Cabinets * Credenza * Bookshelves * Stacking Chairs * Assorted Metal & Plastic Desk-top Paper/File/Mail Sorters * Chalkboard * Bulletin Boards * Boxes of Binders
Halogen Lamps * Misc. Computer Odds & Ends * Coffee Mugs * Holiday Decorations
_____________________

We’ve got a few good friends lined up to help us move items Saturday morning around 6:30/7am, but we could certainly use more - we promise lots of snacks!

Oh and don’t forget our M&M Meats Charity BBQ next Saturday, September 22 from 11am-3pm at 3637 Shelbourne Street. We’re still in need of donations of hamburger and hot dog buns and could use a few more volunteers as well.

On another note too, you may have noticed our thermometer has changed and our fundraising goal is now $6,000. We’ve decided to take the opportunity to explore more of Ghana following our volunteer build before we head home for Christmas and good old Revenue Canada dictates that we can only fundraise for 50% of our airfare in that case - so, the good news is that we have now raised 35% of our goal!

We've Hit $1,000!

Very exciting news indeed - thanks to everyone who has donated so far, we have now officially raised $1,090.33 - we are almost at 15% of our goal, thank you!

We have received donations online (woo hoo, the links work!), a donation from the sale of someone's car (how cool is that!?!), several generous donations from the local faith community and we have received an entire room full of items for this Saturday's garage sale (I'd show you a photo but some of you might have a heart attack at the state of our apartment at the moment!).

One of the biggest donations we received was from a colleague of Bruce's - he was trying to sell a very nice solid maple dining room set which included 6 chairs, a table with leaves and a buffet and hutch combination. His ad was still online so late last week we received a call from an interested buyer who came to view the items on Friday. David was very nice and he and his friend were sold on the set so a deal was struck and they left a portion of the payment and we made arrangements for the set to be picked up early this week. As David was leaving he told me how interested he was in the work we would be doing in Africa and told me that he had built some homes in Haiti about 20 years ago. He then asked if there was anything else we needed and I mentioned that we were still looking for donations of items for our garage sale and were also in need of buns for our upcoming BBQ. He left, saying he would be in touch with some other form of support.

Well, less than two hours later he called back to say he had collected over $80 in cash since he had been at our house - I was almost in shock! We were complete strangers to him and he was acting on our behalf to raise funds for our trip - amazing! Of course I thanked him, though I was still close to speechless, and by 9pm that night he called back to say he was in the neighbourhood and wanted to come by and drop off the money he had collected that day. In the envelope, David had collected $125 from his was co-workers at Metro-Lexus Toyota - amazing indeed, thank you David!

On that inspirational note, I'm excited to see what this weekend holds. Our experience with other charity garage sales we have hosted has been so positive and we often meet many people who are already affected by, or are involved, with the cause. So often when we tell others about our trip, they share stories of their own involvement with Habitat or their own experience in Africa. I can't wait to meet more like-minded people this weekend!

Now here's the plug . . . don't forget:

Building For Ghana - Fundraising Garage Sale, Bake Sale & BBQ

Saturday, September 8, 2007
2310 Fernwood Rd
8:00 am-1:00 pm

We're still accepting items so if you've got something to donate, please call or email us and we can make arrangements - we'll be at home tomorrow evening and Friday after 8:45ish. We could especially use baking (home made or not) and a stash or two of plastic bags if you've got them - we've received a large number of clothes so they'll be 'Fill a Bag for $4'.

We could also use an extra hand or two if you're up and at 'em bright and early Saturday and want to help us set everything up between 6:30-8am - any help, if even at 7:59 would be appreciated! As I mentioned, our living room is stacked to the brim and thanks to everyone's donations, we've got a lot of merchandise to move!

So, if you're in the neighbourhood, please stop by. The coffee with be hot, there should be lots of treats (M&M Bars & Zucchini Bread for sure so far) and the hot and veggie dogs will be on the grill at 10am!
As promised here are a few photos of the House Dedication we attended on August 25th.

Over the past two years, volunteers with Habitat for Humanity Victoria have been working alongside the Ahmed and Henderson families to build their homes, a duplex in the Brentwood Bay area of Central Saanich (just north of Victoria and south of Sidney). We hoped on our bikes and took a ride out to witness the dedication ceremony which included an official presentation of house keys to both families, ribbon cuttings, house tours and of course, cake! It truly was a celebration!

Tajudin Ahmed receives the keys to his family's new home from
Habitat Victoria President, Robert Anderson and one of the project supporters.

Both the Ahmed and Henderson families put in over 500 hours into building their homes. The emotion and gratitude was all over their faces and it was amazing to be there to witness this pride in homeownership. Tajudin Ahmed was particularly emotional and I can only imagine this was compounded by the fact that his wife and four children could not be there for the ceremony as they had to return to Ethiopia for a family emergency. We spoke with Taj briefly following the ceremony, over cake and told him of our plans to go to Ghana. He shared a bit about Africa with us and spoke highly of Ghana - we were quickly reminded how much Africa is a continent of contrasts though as Taj told us he can't return to his home country of Ethiopia for political reasons and fear of his safety.

The Henderson family has just cut the ribbon to their new home,
surrounded by volunteers and supporters.

These are extremely lovely homes. They may not appear like a 'typical Habitat home' to some of you who are familiar with Habitat, but in Greater Victoria it is difficult to build any old house, in any old neighbourhood. In this case, this home was built on a lot donated by a local developer. The corner lot is situated at the bottom of the development and up the street, there are several close to $1 million homes. The very exciting news about this development and Habitat's partnership with the developer is that the municipality mandated affordable housing as part of this development. As many of you may know, average house prices in Victoria are amongst the highest in the country ($574,753 as of July) and finding safe, decent affordable housing in Victoria to rent, let alone to by is out of reach for most families. The Henderson's were truly ecstatic to receive their keys - Dave Hnderson spoke after receiving them and couldn't say enough to share his gratitude to everyone involved with Habitat Victoria.

After we had caught up with everyone, had our fill of cake and were almost ready to jump back on our bikes and head home, we realised we hadn't toured the houses yet! So, we carefully removed our shoes at the door and stepped inside. I hadn't been out to the site since early July when the Victoria AbeBooks staff had been out for a Team Build Day to move top soil on one of the warmest days of the summer! At that time, the kitchens were still just drywall, tape and sub-floor and we ate lunch off of a door on a saw horse - now take a look at the finished product:

Brandy & Derek Draper, Habitat Victoria Construction Manager, in the finished
kitchen of the Henderson home - beautifully done Derek and volunteers!

And here is the view point right around the corner from these new homes - all the best to the Ahmed and Henderson families in their beautiful new homes in their beautiful new neighbourhood.

We sure are blessed to live here.

And, as a final note, for those who are interested, Habitat Victoria is also working hard to complete another duplex in Sidney for the Elliott and Forrester/Smith families. We are planning on heading up there one weekend very soon to try our hand at a build site for the very first time! (We figured we should get some heavy labour in before we leave for Ghana!). If you are interested let us know or visit www.habitatvictoria.com to register to volunteer.

That's it, that's all! Good night, good night!

Kicking it Up a Notch . . . 2nd Bar Candy Blitz

So, if you're one of those thermometer watchers (Sharon!) then you will notice we've kicked things went up a notch around here!

Thanks to Ana and Sharon who offered their much needed help, we had a very successful 2nd Bar Candy Blitz. Thanks to the generosity of the following clubs, and their patrons, we raised $319.68 last night - we are very impressed!

BarCode $ Darcy's Pub $ Hugo's ‘ $ Hush
plan b $ Prism $ Upstairs Lounge

Thanks Victoria!

Yesterday Bruce and I also attended the Home Dedication Ceremony for Habitat for Humanity Victoria who dedicated two homes (a duplex) to local families yesterday. The ceremony was beautiful and will be the subject for our next post - complete with photos. Right now, I'm off for a Sunday morning run so I can get myself in shape for all that construction work. The count down is on and we've only got 90 days until we land in Accra . . . it hasn't quite sunk in yet!

Fundraising Update

We're back (we were in the Okanagan visiting with Bruce's family for 10 days) and are excited to announce that we have successfully raised $320 to date!!

We raised $120 at our 1st Bar Candy Blitz which was quite successful and pretty fun (sorry we forgot the photographic evidence). We' still have quite a stash of candy and mardi gras necklaces so we'll be out and about in Victoria selling these for the next few Saturday nights. If you are interested in joining us, please let us know and we'll sign you up. It's a fun night out!

We also received our first personal donation from a very generous friend and so we have honoured this milestone with the unveiling of our very cool fundraising thermometer. At a glance this will keep all of our website viewers up-to-date on our progress. To help us get the mercury closer to our goal of $7,500 you can donate online (see the Donation Details link on the sidebar to the right) or get involved with our fundraising efforts.

We have a few things in the works but the next big fundraiser will be the:

Building For Ghana - Fundraising Garage Sale

__________

Saturday, September 8, 2007
2310 Fernwood Rd
8:00 am-1:00 pm
_________

How You Can Help:

1. Tell everyone you know to come SHOP, SHOP, SHOP! We'll be set up at the front of our complex - 2310 Fernwood Rd - south of Bay Street at Denman at 8am. Please feel free to pass these details on.

2. Donate stuff. Call or email us to make arrangements but basically we'll take whatever you've got and will stack our living room high with treasures (as of this evening it's already getting there - a whole dining room suite is sitting here waiting for a new home)! Clean out your closets, kitchen junk drawers and storage spaces and purge that clutter!

3. Bake or Buy! Kelly's delicious chocolate chip cookies were a huge hit at our last sale and they certainly helped us raise even more $ for our other favourite charity. If you can contribute a few tasty treats let us know. We'll have a big coffee pot brewing (again, bit hit last time!) so if you have some old mugs to donate, we're in need since they'll be free with every coffee purchase!

4. Stop by. Come see us and say Hi as we have fun with those crazy garage sailers (it takes one to know one, believe me!). The hot dogs will be HOT at 10:30am and there will be coffee and something sweet to snack on!

Well that's it for now!

Until the next update - thanks so much for your support everyone!

Bruce & Brandy

1st Bar Candy Blitz

Okay, our first fundraising act is upon us!

Join us Saturday night as we hit downtown Victoria to sell candy necklaces, candy bracelets, suckers and mardi gras necklaces to friendly bar and club patrons.

We'll meet at our place at 9:30pm for drinks and then head downtown at 10:30 or so and see how much we can raise to get things rolling towards building some houses!

Drop me an email at brandyj.pattersonATgmailDOTcom for more details.

Hope to see you Saturday night!

Brandy

PS Check out this amazing shot of a Global Village volunteer with a most beautiful Ghanaian child - I can't wait to be there!

The Details!

Okay, so now that we've shared our exciting news with you, now's the time and place for details!

We'll be joining a team of 20 or so Canadians who will come together for the first time in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, on November 24. After a night of getting to know each other we'll head to a community outside of the city where one of Habitat for Humanity Ghana's local affiliates is based (we'll find out which community in late September/early October). Here we will meet with the local community and learn about how we will help them build several homes alongside families in need.

For those who aren't familiar with Habitat for Humanity, the program is relatively simple. The organization works in local communities to assist working families who live in substandard and often unhealthy conditions who really just need a simple, decent place to live. These families are hard working and earn an income, but not enough to qualify for a conventional bank loan. As part of the partnership agreement, each family—with the help of volunteers like us—spends hundreds of hours building their home. Once the house is ready, they move in and begin paying for it through a no-interest loan from Habitat for Humanity. These mortgage payments then “roll over” and help finance houses for other families. Having families contribute to the building of their homes and those of their neighbours, and then pay for them with reasonable terms, instills self-esteem and the pride of homeownership. Habitat for Humanity refers to this as a hand up, not a handout.

In Ghana, we will spend just over two weeks living and working alongside community and family members to help build several homes. We will sleep in simple accommodations, likely on an inflatable mattress in one of the finished Habitat homes and will eat meals prepared by local women. Washroom facilities will be outhouses and showers will either be out of a bucket or solar showers.

As you may imagine, traveling to Africa through this program is not inexpensive. To begin, the program fees will be $1,600 each which will cover lodging, food, ground transportation, traveler's medical insurance, orientation materials and a donation to Habitat Ghana and the Global Village program. In addition to the program fees we also estimate our airfare will be upwards of $2,300 each. Our goal is to raise $8,000 to support our home building efforts for the local Ghana community.

So, we're looking for your support! Here's how you can support our work and help fund the homes we will help build in Ghana . . .

Donate

(Donations of $20 or more are eligible for a tax deductible receipt)

Online:

Click here.

1. Type in the amount of your donation, and select the frequency - One-time or Repeating.

2. Next under Fund / Designation, select 56. CA07109 Ghana to choose our project.

3. In the Message Box you can also add our names and the trip code (CA07109 Ghana) just to be safe.

4. Fill in the other boxes as required, and continue through the pages. NOTE: No transaction will take place until you are satisfied with the information you have provided.

5. Once you have finished filling everything out, click the Submit button. Only click once and leave your computer for a few moments until the transaction is complete, about 30 to 60 seconds.

6. Thank you! - your donation will be complete, and a receipt will be sent to you by e-mail within a few minutes.


By Phone:

Call 1-800-667-5137 ext. 248
Please tell the operator our names and quote our Global Village Trip Code - CA07109 Ghana


By Mail:

We can accept donations by credit card or cheque by mail. Cheques can made payable to Habitat for Humanity Canada. Please include your mailing address and cheque/credit card information and we will submit these donations to Habitat for Humanity Canada every few weeks.

Please send mail to:

Brandy & Bruce
2310 Fernwood Road
Victoria, BC V8T 2Z5

Lend a Hand!

Scroll down on the right hand side of this page and check out our Google Calendar. This will keep you up-to-date on all of our fundraising activities and give you information about how you can get involved. We'd love to have your support and helping hands with our Bar Candy Blitz's, car washes, BBQ's, garage sale, raffle etc. so drop us a line if you'd like to help out!

Building Hope in Ghana

On Saturday, July 7th we got some pretty amazing news from Rick & Suzanne, our new Team Leaders . . . we were accepted to join a team of Canadians to build houses in Ghana with the Habitat for Humanity Global Village Program from November 24 - December 9, 2007!

This blog will be a place where we can chronicle our experiences as we prepare and fundraise for the build and the trip and hopefully we'll have internet access once we arrive in Ghana so we can share our experiences with you as we build homes alongside local families.

We hope you'll join us on this journey and come back often to visit and see how we're doing!

Brandy & Bruce