Moving Forward...

We just had a small benefit in Waco this past Thursday and it went very well. We had a fairly good turn out and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

We also have another benefit coming up late July in San Antonio. Re:church 210 in San Antonio is putting this on for us and we are so excited! Here is the flyer that Matt Singleton has created to advertise for this great event.

Join us Monday, July 21st at 7pm at La Hacienda de Los Barrios for an evening benefiting one local and one global organization. Proceeds from the benefit will be going to the Battered Women's Shelter of San Antonio and The Karama House of Nairobi, Kenya. The evening will include a fajita dinner, live music, door prizes, and presentations from the two organizations. Tickets are $20 for adults and $16 for kids under 12. Please contact Matt Singleton for more information or to purchase tickets at m_singleton52@yahoo.com or by calling 210-286-5055.

We are also in the process of looking for places in Dallas and Houston to have benefits similar to Here & There. If you know of any places or local organizations to combine with in either of those cities please email us at karama.house@gmail.com

Thanks to all those who attended the Waco benefit and donated! We hope to see everyone in San Antonio for the Here and There benefit!

In other news, we have hired a Social Worker that will be heading to Kenya with Larissa.

Jenny Adams was offered the position early last month and decided that Karama House was something that she really felt a passion for and wanted to help. Here is a picture and a small bio to introduce her to everyone:

I was born and raised in Irving, Texas and I am
graduating in August with a Bachelor degree in
Social Work. I have had the opportunity to work
with orphanages in Russia, Romania and Kenya.
I have always had an interest in working with
transitional independent living for these
populations.I hope to help create an
environment that is safe and educational for
everyone in the shelter. I am eager to get to
know these girls and begin working with their
individual needs. I hope that I am able to help
enhance their goals and encourage the
self-determination needed  to achieve them.

We are so happy to have Jenny be apart of Karama
House and we know that she will be an asset
for the girls in the house.


Last but not least, we have established a board
and currently have 5 board members. This is
huge for us and with their help, our vision as a
whole and support has grown immensely.
Our board members include:
Amanda Horton
Tom McCarty
Bridget Heins
Nancy Gunvordahl
Becky Kennedy

They are all wonderful people and have been
doing an amazing job.

Well, I think that is all for now. I will be
updating a lot more now that things are really
starting to take flight.
Thanks for keeping up with us!

Larissa

Good Things In April

As you can tell, I still have not gotten the hang of updating often enough. But, by waiting, I now have a good chunk of news for you.

Last week, John Mark, Ben, Kelly, and I met with all 5 of our potential Board Members. The meetings went very well and I am hoping that they will all agree to be apart of Karama House. I went ahead and decided to give them a week to think about everything. I am going to meet with them this week to see what everyone thought.

I also got a chance to meet with Michael Stroope, a professor at Truett to talk about some things regarding 501c3 status. He has started many non-profits and knows a lot about the amount of paperwork that will need to be done. From what I gather, it seems that it will be much easier for us, to stick with UBC and use their non-profit status. But, this will need to be discussed with the Board and they will make the final decision.

As you can tell, last week was full of meetings and I have yet another one to tell you about. I met with a friend of mine, Matt Genitempo in Austin on Friday. He is an amazing artist and has agreed to design brochures and a logo for us. I am so excited. I know that he is going to do a fantastic job!

I talked to Matt Singleton from Incarnate Word High School, last week and told me that a bunch of the girls in his classes wrote letters to Oprah and they are fantastic. I guess they have sent 40 so far, and will hopefully send more soon. The school is also holding a fundraiser hopefully this month as well.

Fun news coming up for next month:
I will be speaking at UBC on Graduation Sunday and I'm very excited. I didn't have nearly enough time when I spoke at the Hub earlier this month, so it will be nice to have the Sunday service to talk about everything.

So, that is all for now but there will be much more soon!
Hope you all are well!

Larissa

A Bit Of News

Hello to all!
Well, I don't have a whole lot of news as of right now but I just wanted to let everyone know that things are moving along nicely. I have finally finished the rough draft of our business plan and will be presenting the final draft to our potential Board Members soon. I'm hoping to schedule lunches with each of them by the end of next week.

I got a chance to speak at the HUB at UBC last Wednesday for a few minutes and that was great. I should be speaking about Karama House more in depth during a Sunday service this month which will be fantastic. I really didn't get enough time to talk about everything at the HUB so it will be nice to have that extra time.
I also have a friend that is working on getting me a place to speak in Austin, so I'm excited about that as well.
I've been talking to a few groups at Baylor to see if I can get some speaking engagements around Baylor too.

I have some people helping me out with getting a fundraiser together as well, with another organization called the Alive Campaign http://www.alivecampaign.org/. They are doing some really cool stuff with suicide prevention. Check out their site if you get a chance.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll update again I have some more exciting news to share.
Have a great week!

Larissa

News News News!

Many apologies to all who have been checking the blog and have not found an update for months. So much has happened since November so lets get started.

• The Website is finished.


• I went to San Antonio to speak at schools, Church's and youth groups.


• We have Parker helping to get us 501c3 certified.


• All of leadership team just had a meeting and will be appointing a board hopefully by mid April.
• You can now write donation checks out to: Karama House instead of UBC and still get the tax write-off!!
• Quinton made a fantastic video of three of the four girls that will be living in Karama House!

Now that the main points have been posted, lets discuss them in depth a bit more.

Website:

Well, that is pretty self explanatory and we are so happy that its finally finished.

Speaking Tour:

Some of the most exciting news has been speaking to the public about Karama House. I spent over a week in San Antonio and had a fantastic response from everyone I spoke to. There has been so much support from Incarnate Word High School where Matt Singleton is the English teacher there. He did a fantastic job of hooking me up and keeping the kids motivated. At one point I had the kids jumping out of their seats shouting out fundraising ideas for us. They all really connected to what I was saying and truly wanted to help and be involved.

I will be speaking a the Hub at UBC this upcoming Wednesday and I'm excited about that. I'm hoping to arrange a few more speaking engagements in Waco either through Baylor or the city.

I will also be moving back to Waco because we have all agreed on establishing a board and appointing board members. So, we all think that it will be a good idea for me to stay in Waco for a while establishing board members.

Parker:

We have a business student from Baylor who is helping us gain our 501c3 status. He has been working very hard and is even going to be graded on it for one of his classes. We are so excited about this and very happy that Parker has been willing to do this for us!

Donations:

You can now write your donation checks out to: Karama House.
Previously, we were asking for everyone to write them out to UBC but we have changed that, and you can still get a tax write-off from it.
If you want to donate to something specific feel free to write on the memo line: sponsorship, housing, utilities, etc.
Thanks for all of the support and we hope this change will make it easier on everyone!
Please note: Checks should continue to be mailed to:

University Baptist Church

1701 Dutton Ave

Waco TX 76706.

New Video

Quinton Hershiser stayed in Kenya at Shelter for three months starting December of 2007. He did a lot of great work over there and one thing in particular that he did for us, was make this video. It introduces three of the four girls that will be living in Karama House. Thanks to Quinton for doing a great job!!

Well, I think I covered all the news for now. I'll make sure and update this more often because I know how much everyone has put in this organization and deserve to have timely updates. Thanks for bearing with us!

Larissa

Website Update

Well it looks like it has been far too long since we have posted something new. Everyone has been working so hard trying to get everything ready for the girls to get to school on time.

• The website has been updated recently and we now have a video of Kate, one of the young women that will soon be apart of Karama House.
• All but one of the girls' statements and pictures are up.
• We are also using the Guestbook for folks to ask questions and post comments.

If you check out http://www.think.mtv.com/ we have posted a group in support of Karama House. Just search Karama House and we should pop up! We also have a group on Myspace that is called...you guessed it, Karama House! We are trying to get as many groups out there as possible so if you have any ideas of sites we should be apart of, let us know! Getting the word out there about us is key.

Thanks for keeping up with us and we hope you check out our site soon!
Larissa

More Updates

Check out all the cool ways to donate to Karama House at our website:
Karama House Donate

Also send us your feedback here: Contact Karama House

Inaugural Post

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Check out the "Blog" tag at the top of our website http://www.karamahouse.org to get back to our blogger blog.