Money For Mattresses!!!!!

Hi! Welcome to my mattress fundraiser blog post.  Let's call it Money For Mattresses, just to be catchy.  The mattresses are for kids with no parents.  Some call them orphans, but they are really just kids.  The Children's Home they live in is not too far from here--just an hour and a half south of Miami, in a little land called Haiti.
I am desperately (overstatement) afraid that circulating "my cause" on the internet will do no good and come April 1st I will be short the funds I need (52 beds times $56.25 per mattress equals $2925.00) to make this happen.
There are SO many great reasons to help out!  First of all, I know the kids who sleep on these dirty mattresses and they are sweet and smart and good kids.

I tell you the truth, I am NOT a neat freak and I don't think I would ever let my child sleep on one of their mattresses.  Plus I would love to see their lovely little bodies on a nice white fresh mattress made by a mattress factory in Port-au-Prince.  Jobs are hard to find in Haiti and I can't imagine too many people in Haiti actually ever purchasing a mattress, since many of the kids in the villages (the ones with parents) sleep on the floor.  No, excuse me, the dirt.  They sleep on a pile of who knows what on the bottom of their home in the dirt. So, obviously this would be great for the mattress maker man too.

I know, there are SO many causes out there to give your money to, BUT, allow me to add that $56.25 per mattress is better than any price we could find here in the states AND it is supporting the desperate Haitian economy.  And, I think I could probably do some follow up here and get some pictures of these awesome kids getting their new mattresses.  I will bet that they will be more than appreciative.  These are kids who would follow us around and do anything just to hang out with us.  Though their English lacked (but could speak way more of my language than I could theirs) they were more than willing to help out with the odd jobs we might be assigned, or braid our hair (ouch), or just sit next to one of us and... sit. Like simply having our thighs side by side was enough to make them feel.... I don't know, loved?

So, if your not quite ready to help out with my cause yet (by donating $56.25 for one mattress, checks payable to The Bridge Community Church, OR you can give me the cash if I see you, OR you can donate online at http://www.missionhaiti.org/and designate it to the mattress fund), maybe it would help if I threw some music into the deal.  How about a concert on March 31 in Anderson, IN?  (more specifically the Bridge Community Church 1720 W 22nd St. 46016) How about Jeremy Johnson and the Bleeding Keys? (I happened to be married to the lead singer).  You could come to that and bring a donation toward the cause or I'll even accept a bottle of vitamins (or children's chewable Tylenol) for admission, or you could buy a CD since 100% of the proceeds go to Mattresses for Haiti...(http://www.thejeremyjohnson.com/)  

So to review:
I am trying to purchase mattresses for a Children's Home in Saintard, Haiti.
I am trying to raise these funds by April 1.
To give each child in the Children's Home a new mattress, we need $3,000 (let's tip the mattress man, eh?)
OR
I need 52 people to donate $56.25
OR you can come to a GREAT concert on March 31 and donate there.... or bring an item as admission.
AND you may even be able to buy some authentic Haitian gifts at the concert....(early Christmas shopping?)

Okay.... this is my best effort.  I'm kind of a procrastinator (kind of?) and probably should have tried to get this going a little sooner.  However, there's no time like the present!

Help me if you can!  Circulate the link to this blog post and invite others to the concert!  I would love to be able to send more money than needed down with Mission Haiti on April the 5.

Also, here is a picture of one of the toilets we used when we visited the villages.  This has nothing to do with the mattresses.  I just wanted to share it.


Feel free to e-mail me with any questions or comments... or if you'd like to mail the check, or find out more about the concert, or mattresses, or anything :)