From Finlandia with Love

Kiitos, gracias and THANK YOU to Jelena Leppänen and Aino Huotari!  After two visits to Lobitos, Jelena and Aino have formed a special bond with this beautiful community and the people who live here.  During their most recent trip, they were shooting footage for a documentary about a local surfer.  Before visiting, they collected toys and school supplies which they brought with them to Lobitos.


As part of their fundraising campaign for THE MARCO POLO DOCUMENTARY, Aino and Jelena also raised €540 for Libros a Lobitos!  Thank you girls for your continued support of educational initiatives in Lobitos, Peru.  We are so grateful and can't wait until your next visit!

Welcome to the team, Mariajose!

¡Mil gracias a Mariajose Coronado por formar parte de nuestro equipo de Marketing en redes sociales!  Mariajose está estudiando administración y marketing en Universidad ESAN.  Después de visitarnos en Biblioteca Lobitos y hacer un voluntariado con nosotros, se ha agregado a nuestro equipo.  ¡Chequean el nuevo video que hizo sobre Libros a Lobitos!

Thanks so much to Mariajose Coronado, the newest part of our Social Media and marketing team!  Mariajose is an administration and marketing student from Universidad ESAN and we are so happy to have her working with us to further educational initiatives in Lobitos. ¡Gracias Mariajose!

Let´s See How Far We´ve Come!

With such massive dreams for the future of education in Lobitos, it is easy to walk into the library and see it as one giant to-do list.  There are boxes of books with nowhere to go because we have literally run out of shelf space for the amount of donations we´ve received.  There are always floors to be swept, books to be dusted and turtles to be fed.  


We were recently hit with el niño rains and waterproofing the library and fixing the leaky roof suddenly leaped to the top of our priority list.  Then, there are the more personal tasks: write up a class roster of secondary school kids who might be interested in an intensive English course, drop by Helen´s house to bring her the copy of Pinocchio that she forgot after our Junior Librarian´s meeting (and incidentally wind up talking to her mom about tamales for an hour), ask Carmencita what she thinks about The Cat in the Hat…and the list goes on and on and on…

On top of time constraints, our internet situation has been a bit dodgy and I haven´t been as good at updating the social media for L.A.L. as I would like to be.  There has been A LOT going on at Biblioteca Lobitos and there are loads of upcoming plans as we wrap up summer vacation and classes begin again. 

But, before we get ahead of ourselves, I´d like to take a minute to pause and look back at the beginning.  Although we may have a long way to go, we´ve also come a long way.  I´d also like to take this opportunity to formally thank everyone who donated to our Indiegogo campaign!  Thanks to our lovely contributors, we raised nearly 2,000 USD!  This money will make a huge difference in the advancement of our projects in Lobitos.  We invite you to keep an eye on our money and watch us put it to good use.  Each month we will continue to publish a detailed accounting update so you can see exactly where your hard-earned money is going.  It seems like the only fair thing to do :)

  

January Accounting Update

Transparency is a fundamental component of our organizational philosophy.  We believe that a key part of expressing respect and gratitude for our donors is taking the time to show you exactly where your money is going. 

We have been operating with a very small budget but, as we grow, we promise to remain committed to making wise decisions about where money is spent.  We believe in keeping administrative costs low so that the kids in Lobitos can see the direct impact of incoming funds.  

Where did our funds come from in January?

Our little January BBQ fundraiser at La Casona brought in 120 Peruvian Nuevo Soles (about 40 USD).  MUCHAS gracias to everyone who helped sell tickets and everyone who came out and helped us grill up chorizos (and eat them, of course).  It was lots of fun showing off the library the day before opening and hanging out with all of you lovely people.

We were also fortunate enough to receive a little extra help from our friends at www.qempo.com last month in the form of an 80 USD donation.  Qempo is a socially-minded startup business run by one of our Libros a Lobitos founders.  For each order made through their website, one dollar is donated to the Lobitos Library! 

In total, we spent 455 nuevo soles (about 150 USD)in January.  

Here´s where that money went:

Let there be luz!

165 nuevo soles (approx. 50 USD) went towards supplies to install outlets in the library!  Lucky for us, our good friends at www.lobitosinfo.com are also master electricians and didn´t charge us anything for the installation.  The next step will be getting some fans to plug in to those outlets so we can survive the hot Lobitos summer!

    

52 nuevo soles (approx. 20 USD) was spent on paint last month as part of the beautification of our library.  We also had lots of friends come out and donate free labor.  Thanks guys!  Hope you´re not burnt out on painting yet… soon we´ll be starting work on the outside of the library!  Keep checking our facbeook page for details and come give a hand if you are around!

With all of the commotion going on to get Biblioteca Lobitos ready for opening, we were calling in on a lot of favors!  Luckily our handy dandy red phone never let us down…46 nuevo soles (approx. 20 USD) went to communication costs (this also includes the cost of printing fliers to spread the word about the project throughout Lobitos).

56 nuevo soles (approx. 20 USD) went to random construction odds and ends; a few screws and nails here, a replacement wheelbarrow tire there.  We sure have learned a lot of new tool vocabulary in Spanish this month! 

The last 136 nuevo soles (about 40 USD) went towards school supplies.  We think these crayons, scissors and construction paper have been put to great use by our wonderfully creative kids but don´t take our word for it…see for yourself!

 

This project is currently operating "hand to mouth" which is neither sustainable nor fair to the children using our facilities.  Our goal is to raise 9850 USD in order to set up a fully functioning community library and operate it for the entire year of 2015.  Without your help, we cannot guarantee that the library will be open all year.  With just one day left on our online fundraising campaign, the time to contribute is now!

If you are unable to make a financial contribution at the moment, don´t worry, there are many other ways to help this project gain momentum!  Keep helping us spread the word about this project. 

• Put us in touch with people you know who work in education and have the resources to help our project.

• Invite your friends to like our Facebook Page

• Share our Indiegogo page on your facebook wall or on other social networks.

• Donate Spanish language books and/or educational materials to the project.

• If you are in Lobitos, come by and help us in the library.  There´s plenty to do!

Together we can do great things for some great kids over here in Lobitos!

   

Crunch time!

The transformation continues!  We have been putting in some long days getting Biblioteca Lobitos ready for opening over the last week.   Thanks to the help of this lovely community and a little extra financial support from friends abroad, we are almost there!  Have a look for yourself:

Please, no throwing dirt in the libary!

Wow, a lot has happened since our last blog update!  We have been busy, busy, busy getting ready to open on January 20^th.  Since we announced our inauguration date at the event ESTAMOS AQUI, we have been hard at work painting, pick axing, pouring concrete and, of course, collecting lots and lots of books.   With just 9 days until opening there are no signs of stopping!  Check out what we have been up to:  

Big thanks to everyone for your help and hard work!  Gracias!