Heading to Aidchild

Welcome, friends!

I'm heading to Uganda! As many of you know, I've had the chance over the last few years to take photographs for an organization called Aidchild. They have two homes in Uganda, East Africa, for orphans living with AIDS. The homes are among the most incredible, hopeful places you will ever see. The children receive holistic care, including schooling, emotional nurturing, nutritional and health care, antiretroviral therapy (ARVs) and lots of love.

Aidchild is in a period of transition, growth and change. The number of children has doubled in two and a half years, and there are now three in high school and a dozen more ready to follow. This is truly amazing if you consider that when these children arrived at Aidchild — many of them several years ago — their life expectancy was only 30 days.

This time of growth has led to the "Aidchild Academy Expansion Project." The school was originally begun when the children were young, and now is in an exciting transitional stage as it expands and adjusts to continue to provide the optimal learning experience for the children. I feel privileged that they've asked me to be a part of the project. I've been blessed to get to know many of the kids during my visits and love them all!

I am heading to Uganda on April 8 to devote 6-8 weeks to this project. We'll be focusing on assessing such areas as:

• Curriculum development and expansion
• Optimal classroom size and layout
• Current and future teaching staff needs
• Expansion of educational tools and resources

I'm so excited about this opportunity and wanted you to know about it. I so appreciate you keeping me and this project — and all the beautiful children I get to spend the next few weeks with — in your thoughts and prayers!

Several friends have asked me about the financial aspects of what we're doing. Aidchild is helping me take care of my personal expenses. The anticipated costs related to the project (including expansion expenses, purchasing resources, expenses of hosting me, etc) will be $4,750.

One thing I greatly admire about the way the Aidchild homes are run is how self-sustaining they are. They have poultry and vegetable farms, as well as two amazing art galleries that bring in resources and income to fund a large portion of the daily operating expenses and care for the children. So as we plan this project, my personal hope is that we use as little as possible of Aidchild's regular support and income to finance it.

So many of you have listened to my stories, looked at my pictures and fallen in love with the children over the last couple of years, and most of you have been involved in various fundraising endeavors for them. With the financial and emotional investment you already have in the home and the children, I thought you may also want to be a part of this project.

If you're interested, you can donate in a couple of different ways. The easiest way is to go to the website, www.aidchild.org, and click on "Donate" in the top right corner. When you enter your credit card information, you can type "Aidchild Academy Expansion Project" in the "payment for" line. If you'd rather pay by check, you can send it to: Aidchild, P.O. Box 26100, Christiansted, VI, 00824-2100, USA.

Also, if you have friends and family that you think might be interested in this, please feel free to pass this along to them.

I'm very excited about the coming weeks and will do my best to keep you posted!