Thankful Thursdays - 70th Birthday CAR Campaign
70th Birthday Campaign!
Help Nancy, Marlese, ASAP and PEN buy a birthday car!
Last May 18th I celebrated my most memorable birthday ever with Marlese Nel, our ASAP coordinator in South Africa. For three days, we visited ASAP’s educational toy libraries and 6 of the 130 preschools we support. We got to know the early childhood development coaches and staff of our partner nonprofit PEN and joined a curriculum training session (see video below) with preschool owners preparing for next their week’s lesson. What a thrill to experience the tangible difference ASAP donors are making for children and women whose lives have been limited by their zipcodes.
As Mystery would have it, Marlese and I were both born in 1953, less than 24 hours apart, on different continents! For our 70th birthday we would like a car—not a Porsche, nor a car we will own or drive ourselves. We want a car for 7 passengers, with removable seats, and high clearance for deep potholes and rough roads. Will you help PEN get a car like the one below which was donated by a tile company? The double-wide trailer was also donated by Itatile and outfitted by ASAP in 2021 with educational toys, games, books, and tables and chairs for weekly and monthly trainings.
A second reliable vehicle with branding on its doors is desperately needed to avoid car jackings or breakdowns. The coaches travel into dangerous inner-city areas and isolated rural areas making weekly visits from PEN’s central office in Pretoria to the ASAP resource hubs and to the 10 schools under their wings. They can’t use public transportation to get balance beams and other large equipment to the preschools.
