We are excited to announce that our Equatoguinean study abroad student, who was able to study English in America this summer because of The Ladybug Project Inc., has been accepted into an intensive English program at the University of West Florida!

Congratulations Nguere! We are proud of your progress and excited for your future success!

Last week, Deme one of our volunteers, visited our project sites in Equatorial Guinea! As part of our ongoing effort to provide only sustainable and necessary aid, we work with on-the-ground volunteers to complete at least one visit per year to each of our project sites. During these trips, we assess the impacts of our aid and work with the local community to improve our giving.

Will you be traveling to Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, or Madagascar? Serve as a trained Ladybug Project Site Assessment volunteer! Email Kim Reuter, Director, for more information (kereuter@theladybugproject.com)!

We are excited to announce our new partnership with the Ghanaian registered NGO Bediako YouthAid Foundation! In addition, we are proud to report on the development of two unique internship opportunities that we have developed together with the YouthAid Foundation: our AIDS/HIV Health Educator Internship and our Teaching Internships, both of which take place in the Jasika-area of Ghana, West Africa!

For more information, please visit our page dedicated to this internship opportunity!

Today, we are excited to announce our student scholar visited Florida Gulf Coast University and together with Ann, our FGCU Representative, was able to meet the university's Vice-President. Impressed by The Ladybug Project and our scholar, the university has agreed to work with us as we move forward to help the student matriculate into an American university for study towards an American bachelor's degree.

In Equatorial Guinea, the only university in the country offers just a three-year bachelor degree; a remnant of their colonial past. In order to gain higher levels of education, including an internationally recognized four-year bachelor, students must leave the country. A difficult feat by any means, The Ladybug Project has started a vigorous scholarship program which will provide the administrative and financial support necessary to study internationally to Equatoguinean university students, as funding allows.

For more information on our student scholar program click here, to learn about Equatorial Guinea click here, and to learn how you can help us, click here!

Kim, our Executive Director, and Ann, our FGCU Alumni Representative journeyed today to Miami International Airport where they picked up Nguere, our first Equatoguinean Student Scholar! For more information about our student scholar program, click here.

After journeying 25 hours through Madrid and finally arriving in America, he is excited to discover America and prepare for his upcoming TOEFL test. Starting Monday, Nguere will embark on an intensive, daily English course through the non-profit Literacy Council of Bonita Springs as well as weekly conversation courses through the Lee County Library System.

We will be sure to keep you posted as Nguere moves towards his goal of attending an institution of higher education here in Florida!

We've reached a huge milestone for The Ladybug Project! The first supplies were delivered to Equatorial Guinea!

School supplies were delivered today after they were flown into the country early last week by Jack, a volunteer who routinely flies between the United States and Equatorial Guinea!

Driven to the small village of Moka by Nguere, an in-country volunteer, notebooks, pens, and Minnesota Twins baseball caps were delivered for the 100 students of the Colegia National de Moka as well as the Pre-Escuela de Moka. In addition, we were able to provide much needed cleaning supplies and a table and four chairs for the Pre-Escuela de Moka, as requested by the teachers.

We have a long road ahead of us - the pre-school is in need of furniture and additional supplies, and the secondary school (the Colegia National de Moka) asked for sports equipment, reference materials, and maps of the world to decorate the school walls.

Thanks to everyone who made this supply drop-off possible! In the future, we hope to continue regular supply shipments, and as always we will make sure the aid is tailored to the schools!

We are proud to announce that our first shipment of supplies (destination: Moka school initiatives) are en route for Equatorial Guinea at this very moment!

It's taken many months for us to grow into the kind of organization that can support these efforts, but we've made it...and we've launched our first trial shipments!

As part of our goal to advance education in Equatorial Guinea, we collected wishlists from our two school sites with the intention of providing necessary aid as funds would allow. After several successful fundraisers, and a kind donation from the Minnesota Twins, we have been able to coordinate with volunteers at three different locations to ensure successful delivery. In order to arrive in Equatorial Guinea, supplies have to be shipped to Texas, where volunteer professionals will fly the supplies to Equatorial Guinea on a quarterly basis. Once in Equatorial Guinea, in-country volunteers receive the supplies and deliver them to our project sites.

In any case: a big thank you to our volunteer translator, Alistaire, for his Spanish authorship of our customs declarations letter, and many thanks to Lauren for volunteering to pack and ship our items from South-West Florida to Texas. Thank you to Jack for transporting the supplies, and Pedro for delivering them to our Equatoguinean schools!

As always, we will keep our posted on the success of this supply delivery...and all other Ladybug Project related news!

Dear Friends, Family, and Supporters,

Happy New Year and above all, thank you for making our first year as an organization a complete success!


We are happy to report that six months after the inauguration of The Ladybug Project, we’ve not only elected a Board of Directors, applied for 501(c)(3) status, completed awareness raising campaigns, and undergone a complete image overhaul.

2010 was a monumental year for so many reasons. During the summer, many of you donated through the “Buy a Desk, Buy a Beer,” campaign. As the first big awareness push, it was a huge success reaching over thirty donors and allowing us to gift sixty desks to an urban high school in the Northern city of Diego, Madagascar. As two of our volunteers will attest, the Director of the school was brought to tears by the delivery, and the school’s 1043 students will now be able to sit comfortably during their lessons, instead of on rickety benches or a dirt floor. The campaign was proof that sometimes small, well-planned initiatives can make a large-scale difference.

As we moved into the fall, The Ladybug Project underwent some strategic administrative changes; the creation of our inaugural Board of Directors added Joshua Stewart, Micah Burkey, Dr. Peter Reuter, and Audrey Stewart to our ranks as Vice-Director, Vice-Director, Treasurer, and Secretary, respectively. For more information on each of the Board members, as well as contact information, please visit our website: www.theladybugproject.com. We would also like to note that Joshua and Audrey Stewart recently got married; we wish them all the best for the coming year!

With the coming of 2011, The Ladybug Project is excited to work with the Minnesota Twins Baseball Team, who have made a generous donation of hats and T-shirts for our school children in Equatorial Guinea, and are also allowing us to run concession fundraisers at their Spring Training games. In addition, thanks to an idea spawned in Ms. Sipos’ Bonita Springs Charter 2nd Grade Class, we will be starting a letter writing campaign, where elementary classrooms in South Florida will be able to write letters and send supplies over to Equatorial Guinea using our network of volunteers.

Most excitingly, and thanks to the artistic talents of Joshua Stewart, we have also welcomed the New Year by creating a fabulous new logo, launching a new website, and even starting an online storefront, where all kinds of fantastic items are up for grabs. In addition to t-shirts sporting our African themed ladybug, we are also selling goods sporting the original artwork of Matthew Jones, a British artist whose ties to Madagascar compelled him to help our cause. Our favorites are the Ladybug coffee mugs and the awesome Jones’ inspired Iphone cases!

As we progress into the New Year, we hope that you will continue to support our cause – we are nothing without your monetary and online presence! We love to hear from you on our facebook page, our twitter site, and via email. Any comments, thoughts, or suggestions are welcomed!

Thanks, again for making this year such a success.

With love from The Ladybug Project,

Kim Reuter
Director, The Ladybug Project


Website: www.theladybugproject.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ladybug-Project/117042708343616
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ladybugproject
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/companies/the-ladybug-project

Our 2010 Volunteers:

Demetrio Bocume
Elizabeth Congdon
Michelle Cuz
Mr. Eskin
Kelly’s Heroes
Mary Johnson
Louise Jones
Matthew Jones
Lisa Lam
Nguere Nguema
Ann Reuter
Lauren Reuter
Chelsea Ricketts
Lindsay Shelton
Frank Solak

Thanks to our first "Buy a Beer, Buy a Desk" campaign, we were able to gift sixty desks to a high school in Diego Suarez, in Madagascar! For information on this initiative, please click here.

Over the past three weeks and with the help of Ismael Leandre, Kim Reuter negotiated with local carpenters to build the desks and have them delivered. When the d-day finally arrived today, Michelle and Lou Jones (two of our excellent volunteers) were there to document all of the action! Hailing from Norway and the United Kingdom, respectively, Michelle and Lou worked with Kim in Madagascar and have become excellent advocates for the organization. To see pictures of the delivery, check out our gallery below!

To learn more about this tiny, 100-student rural school, click here.

This last weekend, Kim Reuter along with Ladybug Project volunteers Michelle and Lou traveled from Diego Suarez to the village of Mahamasina where we are sponsoring a small elementary school! While we didn't get to meet any students (school is out for the summer!), we did get to chat with the Director of the school and she very much appreciated the notebooks, pens, erasers, and soccer ball that we brought along with us! In the future, we hope to be able to provide small scholarship to students graduating from this school in order to pursue higher education!