Meet my friend Megan (pictured here getting her hair done by a Peruvian expert stylist).
I met Megan on the second day of college and we’ve been great friends ever since. Over the years, Megan has served as a great inspiration to me and my Epic Quest of Awesome: after we graduated from school, she randomly packed up and moved to St. Thomas for a year, and since then has lived in Spain, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and Peru in between semesters as a grade school teacher.
She is the queen of spontaneity, and more often than not I get a phone call from her asking me to do something completely random and ridiculous.
More often than not I say “yes,” because life is all about making great stories.
Now, when she’s not traveling or teaching, Megan loves to help make kids lives better.
I need your help making these kids’ lives better too 🙂
Seeds of Hope
In November 2011, Megan spent six weeks volunteering at an after-school program in Huaraz, Peru, where she met some of the nicest, happiest, most grateful children ever.
At this program, children receive help with their homework, to do educational activities, have a meal, brush their teeth, and have the opportunity to play.
These awesome kids come from very poor families. Most live in houses without running water and/or electricity; Seeds of Hope pays for their school uniforms, school fees, provides them with at least one meal a day, and really emphasizes hygiene – they buy toothbrushes for each kid and make them brush their teeth before leaving Seeds so that they get to brush at least once a day.
The education system down there is unfortunately quite poor as well. Oftentimes, these children’s homework is to simply copy text from a textbook into their notebooks. Consequently, there are major skill gaps, and reading comprehension is especially low.
Right now, their current “library” consists of donated books that are in English (these kids speak Spanish) and on too high of a reading level.
The education system isn’t preparing the kids with the tools they’d need to break the poverty cycle.
If there was a library full of books on every level for students of all ages, Seeds of Hope volunteers could work with students on their level to develop their reading comprehension, which is the best way to help them break out and get a job that could change their life.
Megan asked if I could help get these kids some books that they actually can read and allow them to live better. She let me know that her students here in Tennessee have already raised the first $400 of the $2500 required to supply Seeds of Hope with the proper reading materials to help these children develop their education properly.
That’s where we come in.
Support a good cause, get a shirt, be a hero
For the next two weeks, Nerd Fitness will be donating 100% of profits from every single item in the Nerd Fitness apparel store towards helping these kids get a library.
The way I see it, you end up with a cool t-shirt (that you will do something epic in and send me photographic proof!), and these great kids get books to further their education, learn more about the world (which is what nerds do), and grow up to be superheroes.
If you ever planned on picking up a t-shirt, sweatshirt, sweatpants, hat, tank top or whatever, you’d be MY hero if you picked up in the next two weeks to help these kids out!
On top of that, with Summer right around the corner, I figure we should do some spring cleaning!
For the next two weeks, we’re having a sale on our colder gear stuff:
- Hoodies are $7.00 less ($37.99)
- Sweatpants are $7.00 less ($22.99)
- Long sleeve thermals are $5.00 less ($24.99)
A QUICK NOTE: If an item is “BACK ORDERED”, it means we sold out of our current stock but are replenishing ASAP! We’re ready to place orders for new items the second it looks like we’re heading towards running out of them, so feel free to still place your order even if it’s back ordered to make sure the money goes to the kids. It might take a few extra days for you to get your shirt, but we’ll do so as soon as humanly possible!
Thanks for your understanding 🙂
What if I just want to donate?
Now, if you’d like to make a donation to the cause but aren’t interested in any apparel, first of all: thank you.
You can donate as little as you’d like, but For a minimum donation of $10, we’ll send you two NF stickers to show your support of the Rebellion. (one Red, one White)!
On top of that, Campus Customs (our apparel partner) and Team Nerd Fitness have joined forces to match every dollar donated (for the first $500 donated).
You get some bad-ass stickers (each piece of apparel comes with stickers as well), you get to feel good, and the library gets double the donation. That’s a win-win-win.
Thank you!
For the Rebellion!
I just wanted to take a quick opportunity to say thanks again for being part of Nerd Fitness.
I’m honored to level up alongside you, and I’m happy to be able to be a part of something that makes people’s lives better, in many more ways than one.
Moving forward, I’m excited to see where this community goes and find out just how many different ways we’re capable of putting a dent in the universe.
Thanks again. Now, let’s get these kids a library 🙂
The goal is $2100 to get these kids the books they need.
If we happen to raise more than that, we can actually send Megan down there to help set the bookshelves up properly and make sure these kids get started on the right foot.
Think we can do it?
UPDATE: Thanks to you guys, we ended up raising $7500 – more than three times our goal. Megan built her library in Peru, we helped build a playground, we helped kids get books here in the States, and we also donated money to make chronically ill children have more fun in the hospital. I love you guys.
For the Rebellion!
-Steve
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