The Ladybug Project Inc. is proud to announce our first Supporter of the Month: Danielle Hess!

For more information on the work that Danielle has done for the project, as well as our Supporter of the Month program, please click here!

On September 15th, 2011, the Tennessee Tech University Spanish Club will be holding an event at Poet's on the Square (Cookeville, Tennessee) to benefit The Ladybug Project Inc. Designed to be an evening of fun, music, and charity, it will be a great place to go and learn about the project and also make a difference!

Interested? Check out the promotional brochure, below!

Dear Friends,

It's been thirteen months since I put together the first Ladybug Project fundraiser at a sweltering hotel in Diego Suarez, Northern Madagascar. Using borrowed internet and spending the hours staring at websites that never seemed to completely finish loading, I cashed in the bulk of my social capital in hopes that people would turn out their pockets and donate $3 to a charity project I had just created: The Ladybug Project Inc.

Cutely entitled, "Buy a Beer, Buy a Desk," the idea centered around the idea that these friends of mine - spread across the world - wouldn't mind buying me a beer...and so they shouldn't mind giving me $3 to help finance the purchase of sixty desks for a dilapidated school at which I was teaching conservation biology.

The gamble paid off, and in that first online push, I was able to raise just over $1000. Doubling that amount with personal funds, I launched The Ladybug Project Inc. with a purchase of sixty custom-built desks for the local high school, and the delivery of $250 of school supplies to a rural school in the nearby village of Mahamasina.

Unlike in movies and inspirational novels, the following year of logistics and organizational build-up was no walk in the park. As it turns out (and perhaps I should have suspected as much), starting a nonprofit organization is intensely difficult and filled with adversity. One-hundred and three pages of IRS paperwork, sleepless nights, hearing "no" after "no", and motivating others to care about education and healthcare problems occurring thousands of miles has been extraordinarily difficult.

Other's have asked why I, the Board members, and countless volunteers, keep on working when we could just donate our time and money to established causes. The answer is simple: we have been touched by the cries and problems of specific schools, of individual children, of a nurse forgotten by the government and left without funding. To turn our backs to these problems. We have been driven to help these people.

During that first fundraiser, thirteen months ago, we asked for a donation of $3 per person. This year, we've upped the ante. In an event entitled, "Take us on a movie date to Africa", we are suggesting a donation of $10 per person. 

Over the next two weeks, The Ladybug Project Inc. will be running this fundraising drive in hopes of collecting $2000 which will help us jump start the process of applying to grants, seek corporate sponsorship, and hire our first employee in 8 months. We really, really appreciate your kind giving and it is our promise to you that we will build an organization with a diversified and sustainable income. Furthermore, we pledge to build an infrastructure which sustains a consistent expenditure rate that allows 85% or more of our donations to directly benefit our education and healthcare projects in Africa.

With $3 donations in 2010, we sent 850 pounds of supplies to West Africa, brought an African student to America to study English for 5 months, donated custom-built shelving units to an Equatoguinean clinic, gave 60 desks to a school in Madagascar, and even expanded to Ghana to start an HIV/AIDS health awareness program.

Imagine how much change we can effect with $10 donations in 2011!

For more information, please visit our Facebook event page or visit our donation page!

Best regards,

Kim Reuter, Executive Director
Phone: 850-320-3237
Email: kereuter@theladybugproject.com

Please welcome Autumn Elliott, our new volunteer Outreach Coordinator and our first new staff member at our newly opened Philadelphia Development Offices! Autumn has completed past volunteer and ecological work in the country of Equatorial Guinea (where we undertake education and healthcare advancement), and will be working with us as part of the Drexel University co-op program.

For more information on Autumn, please check out our Team page!

For information on how you can work for The Ladybug Project Inc., please visit our Work for Us page, or email Kim, Executive Director: kereuter@theladybugproject.com

We are excited to announce that we collected just over 80 pounds of donated school supplies here in Philadelphia from a local school! The supplies have already been repackaged and will be sent to West Africa in just a week or two...that brings our current count of supplies sent to West Africa to just over 850 pounds!

For information on how you can donate supplies, please click h

We have just sent another box of school supplies to our schools in Moka, Equaotorial Guinea! Composed entirely of donations, from a variety of donors, the supplies include notebooks, business clothing for the teachers, and even some arts and crafts materials. With this latest supply shipment, we have now sent 766 pounds of supplies to Equatorial Guinea in less than one year!

Interested in donating used and new supplies? Check out this page.

For more information on how you can help, email our Executive Director, Kim Reuter: kereuter@theladybugproject.com

The Ladybug Project Inc. is excited to welcome Jessica Costello, a UK-based volunteer to our team! Jessica's impressive education and training in HIV/AIDS work will be a great asset to our organization, and we can't wait to see how her work will help us with our grant applications and healthcare initiatives.

For more information about Jessica, please visit our team page here.

For more information about you can work, intern, or volunteer for The Ladybug Project Inc., please do not hesitate to email Kim Reuter, Executive Director: kereuter@theladybugproject.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Contact: Kim Reuter, The Ladybug Project Inc. Executive Director, 850-320-3237

HUNDREDS OF LEE COUNTY SOCCER PLAYERS TO PARTICIPATE IN “STRIKERS FOR STRIKERS” AND SEND SPORTS EQUIPMENT TO AFRICA

Fort Myers – From August 17th to September 17th, the Lee County Strikers soccer program will be holding a “Strikers for Strikers” Soccer Equipment Charity Drive to benefit kids in West Africa. Partnered with a locally based non-profit, called The Ladybug Project Inc., kids of all ages will be donating their gently used shoes and soccer materials so that kids in rural villages in Africa will have real equipment to play with.

“Soccer is a game that ties families, villages, and whole areas together,” Kim Reuter said of the recipient schools in Equatorial Guinea, West Africa. “In fact, when we first visited our school sites May 2010, one of the things that the teachers requested were jerseys, shoes, and soccer balls so that the kids could play in teams against each other with a real ball. During our visit, the students were playing football barefoot with a ball of trash (they had tied it together to resemble a football), and designated teams by having everyone without a t-shirt play together.”

Hearing this inspirational story, Will MacArdle, a Strikers soccer coach, decided to get active. Calling on all of the Strikers teams to come together to help create change, he said, “No kid should ever have to use a rolled up ball of trash in order to play soccer. Let's do something for these people that will have such an amazing impact on the quality of their lives. We may even create the next Messi as a result of these donations!”

Founded in 1986, the Lee County Strikers soccer club involves hundreds of students who play by the motto, “Live the Passion, Live the Game.”

The Ladybug Project Inc. is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization which connects communities across the world to advance education and healthcare in Africa. For more information, please visit: www.theladybugproject.com

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We are excited to announce that as of August 10th, 2011, The Ladybug Project Inc. became a registered 501(c)(3) organization in the United States of America. What this means in layman's terms, is that we had to undergo a vigorous application process with the American Internal Revenue Service and after several months of program analysis and financial reports, we are now considered a registered charitable organization. In addition, all donations - both in-kind and monetary - are now eligible for tax exemption.

Becoming a 501(c)(3) organization will allow The Ladybug Project Inc. to grow like never before, by applying to grants, seeking and accepting larger donations, and continuing to grow into a long-term fixture in international aid and development!

We have great news to share! The Ladybug Project Inc. is now a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable organization! After a vigorous application process, we are not required to abide by US government and IRS standards, put in place to protect well-meaning donors. It is even more assurance that your money and time are going towards a cause that really does work to advance education and healthcare in Africa. Best of all, your donations - both in-kind and monetary - are now tax deductible!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Kim, Executive Director: kereuter@theladybugproject.com

For information on how you can donate supplies or donate money, please click here!