A sneak peak into the auction items!

Below is a list of some of the many auction items that will be available to bid on at this Friday's Silent Auction...

Friday the 12th / Downtown St. Paul University Club / 340 Cedar Street / 5:00-8:00pm / Auction runs from 6:00pm-8:00pm / Free Appetizers & Desserts, Cash Bar, Live Music!


Category #1 - “The Big Guns”

•Dakota Jazz Club – Spend an afternoon prepping a main course meal with one of Twin Cities top chefs - Jack Riebel. Learn cooking techniques and ask him any question you desire. Come back that evening and enjoy a complimentary meal (the one you prepared) and a live jazz show on a Saturday night! Item is for two people.
Value: $700.00 Starting Bid: $350.00

•5 night stay at a Beach Home on Rockaway Beach, Oregon (just seconds away from the beach!)
Value: $500.00 Starting Bid: $300.00

•50,000 Delta Frequent Flyer Miles – good for two roundtrip tickets anywhere in the continental US.
Value: $600.00 Starting Bid: $ 250.00

•A Power of Attorney, “Simple” Will & a Healthcare Directive for an individual or married couple.
Value: $600.00 Starting Bid: $ 325.00

•St. Paul Hotel – Deluxe Suite Accommodations for 2 people, also dinner for 2 up to $100.00 Value: $300 Starting Bid: $150.00


Category #2 – “What a steal!”

•100% Kashmir scarves bought in Kashmir, India
Value: $140.00 Starting Bid: $70.00

•Three World Cup Jerseys (USA/South Africa/Italy) bought at the World Cup
Value: $80.00 Starting Bid: $45.00

•Three Personal Training Sessions at Fit Studio located in St. Louis Park Value: $ 270.00 Starting Bid: $125.00

•A round of golf (9 or 18 holes) at the Town & Country Club with drinks provided after in the club house. Available up to 3 people.
Value: $400.00 Starting Bid: $200.00

•KGSA gear! – A great hoodie, t-shirt, coffee mug, and a SIGG water bottle. Value: $170.00 Starting Bid:$ 80.00

•Martha Stewart Package – Signed cookbooks - Cupcakes, and Fresh Flavor Fast,steel colander, ice cream scooper, whisk and can opener!
Value: $ Priceless Starting Bid: $50.00


Category #3 – Artwork/Crafts

•Kenyan ceramic beaded necklaces Value: $110.00 Starting Bid: $60.00

•Kenyan ceramic beaded earrings Value: $45.00 Starting Bid: $20.00

•Traditional Kenyan Massai blanket, with wooden bowl & tongs
Value: $ 100.00 Starting Bid: $50.00

•Soap stone coffee mugs and coffee Value: $70.00 Starting Bid: $40.00

•Photography from Ryan Sarafolean from travels in India, Kenya, and South Africa Value: $175.00 Starting Bid: $90.00


Category #4 – Gift Certificates

•Ordway - $70.00
•Caron Chiropractic – One hour massage
•Solo Vino - $25.00
•Billy’s on Grand - $25.00
•Punch Pizza - $25.00
•Brasa - $25.00
•Happy Gnome - $50.00
•Muddy Pig - $25.00
•Hell’s Kitchen - $25.00
•The Local - $40.00
•Dunn Bros - $30.00
•Common Roots - $25.00
•WA Frost - $100.00

a call to my grassroots family...

In a little more than a month, the KGSA Foundation (yes, we've changed our name and will be developing a separate website too for the US efforts) will be hosting our second annual silent auction to raise money for our new campaign - the Secure a Future Campaign, and we specifically need YOUR help if this year is going to be as successful as last year!

I am well aware that we all have limited time on our hands but take a look at what our needs are below and see what you can do. Please email me with suggestions, questions, and confirmations as to what you are willing to commit to. Your help is greatly appreciated and makes a huge difference in the lives of the girls attending KGSA, it truly does.


#1 - Get the word out!! The big thing is getting NEW people into the event this year, expanding our base of potential supporters. All I'm asking is that you call or email a few of your friends and make November 12th a date that you get together for something fun - an auction with live music, drinks, and appetizers all benefiting a good cause. I'm nervous about the turnout as the space is larger, so we gotta fill it up. Please do what you can to put this in your calendar and your friends and family's calendars too!!! Below is a drafted email with all the information you'll need. Change it if you want, I'm just trying to make it as easy as I can for you to spread the word.


#2 - AUCTION ITEMS!! We still need auction items, anything works! Do you have a craft, skill, connection to a local business, or an artist, a cabin you could auction off for a weekend, what can your work offer, something in storage you have never used and always wanted to get rid off that is cool, would you be willing to put together something? I'd like to get all the items together in my possession before November 1st so I can put together the bid sheets. Please let me know about this one as soon as possible so I can put you down on my check list.


#3 - Volunteer!! I will be needing around 6-8 volunteers this year to make this year run smoothly and your presence would be needed at different periods of the event. I'll need greeters, people to help with the sign-in and registration, the gift collection at the end, and people to help clear the auction items as the tables close. If you are interested in volunteering, please email me. I appreciate all the help I can get.

Below is the pre-drafted email, tweak it if you want it to sound like its coming from you...



Hey ( Dan Otieno! )

I just found out about this great event on the 12th of November and I thought it would be fun if we went together. A few years back my friend Ryan started his own non-profit, the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy (KGSA) which financially supports a school in the slums of Kibera, Kenya providing free secondary education, athletic opportunities, and artistic programming to the young women living in the slums of Kibera. He is hosting a Silent Auction to raise funding for this new campaign they're kicking off. They're calling it the Secure a Future Campaign, where 100% of the money raised from this point, until next summer will go directly into income generating opportunities that will be established in Kenya. The whole idea is to generate enough profit through these activities to meet our operational costs for the school, decreasing the school's dependency on donor support in the future. There will be live music, drinks, and appetizers so it should be a fun Friday night! Are you interested?

It's on Friday, November 12th at the University Club - the Downtown location on the 14th floor from 5:00-9:00pm. The auction tables open up at 6:00pm.
The address is 340 Cedar Street, Saint Paul.

Let me know if you are free, it'd be great to see you there and it's a great cause to support too!




Thanks in advance for all of your help, I appreciate it!

-Ryan

Secure a Future for the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy!

It's been over 2 months now since I've been back in the states. While I was working with the administration in Kenya, our discussions kept coming back to the idea of financial sustainability and the steps that are necessary to take in order to get KGSA to a level where they can run the organization themselves.

What we have decided to do is begin a campaign, a Secure a Future Campaign (http://secureafuture.wordpress.com), where 100% of the money raised from this point, until next summer will go directly into income generating opportunities that will be established in Kenya. The whole idea is to generate enough profit through these activities to meet our operational costs for the school, decreasing the school's dependency on donor support in the future. We have quite a low overhead cost for what we are able to do and provide, and we are determined to make this a reality.

Our goal is to raise $100,000 over the course of this next year by identifying 100 individuals, or parties that are willing to donate $1,000 to our quest of sustainability.

We are holding a Silent Auction this November to kick-off the campaign and we would love to see you all there! Please spread this information to anyone you think would be interested in supporting our cause and the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy!


What: Silent Auction to kick-off the Secure a Future Campaign!

Where: University Club - Downtown
340 Cedar Street, 14th Floor, Saint Paul, MN

When: Friday, November 12th, 2010
5:00 - 9:00pm (first auction table opens at 6:00pm)

Hakuna Shida... not matata!

There's not much more to say that I haven't said before. I leave Kenya in five days, five very fast days. I feel incomplete, or at least the work here, and that is hard to walk away from. There has been so much momentum generated over the last few months and it's only natural to want to see these upcoming projects through. I do recognize that KGSA will always be growing, always implementing more programming, and I won't always be there for it. That's the way it should be though. We are really starting to get to a place where the organization is functioning as a complete unit. This was the first year we had volunteers outside of the University of Minnesota program and already they are organizing HIV/AIDS education seminars with the girls, they're setting up self defense classes, and creating a confidence building workshop for the students. These are all things that myself and the other directors would love to do but simply don't have the time for it, so watching our volunteers come in with SUCH PASSION is really exciting! This has been a year of firsts and I feel so grateful to have been able to experience it here on the ground next to Abdul and the girls. Thanks to everyone that supported me during this time, supported the school, or just read my blog and followed the work that is being done here. Much love and very excited to see you all.

World Cup madness

A few days ago Teka, the Principal of KGSA, and I took the girls to the local movie theater where they were showing the World Cup games. It was the last afternoon game in group play so we couldn't miss this opportunity as the night games are too late for the girls. I told Teka that all of the schools in South Africa had taken off the entire month, as well as schools in Argentina, so I thought it was at least fair to lobby for a half day. After all, it is the 1st World Cup in Africa. Teka agreed, and we were off! One hundred and eight girls and staff marched through Kibera toward Nakumatt's theater excited to see the Portugal Korea match. On our approach, I realized I forgot one small detail... how the hell we're we going to organize and control 100+ girls with 3 staff, including myself?

Luckily I had told the theater about our group the day before and they had the popcorn prepared and were setting them out before the game. What a site! This poor guy had to scoop over fifty bags of popcorn and try to somehow organize them for our arrival. It all worked out though. We got into the movie theater without any problems but as soon as the cameraman panned over Ronaldo before the game, the girls went wild! Okay, I get it... he's a good looking guy, but they went crazy! It was funny though, because I at times forget that these girls are just like any other teenage girl around the world. They are boy crazy! They face so many more challenges in life than normal, but they still have the same emotions, nerves, desires inside them as any girl.

THEN, Portugal scored their first goal. I digress for a minute. Now I had just come back from South Africa to watch some of the World Cup games. They have these things called Fan Parks set up all over the cities - basically a big park with beer gardens, food stands, and jersey stores all over. You're surrounded by people and it can get pretty wild in them if the right fans are there.

Now, returning to Portugal's first goal. You would think that there was actually a fire in the theater based on the decibel level that their screams reached. It was louder than any Fan Park in South Africa while only having 100 girls. They began jumping all over, screaming, running up and down the stairs (luckily no one else was in there thankfully) but we actually had the manager come in and tell us that the theater next to us could hear our screams and we needed to keep it down. It didn't really do anything unfortunately because Portugal went on to score another 6 goals and the madness followed just the same.

Needless to say, the girls had a blast and both Teka and I were extremely glad that we did this. Unfortunately I only have roughly two more weeks here with the school and girls. I have truly enjoyed these last 10 months and the opportunities that I've had to be here for this long. I know I'll be back, I'll continue the KGSA work in the states, but it's not the same. I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to walk down to the school and see these girls whenever I want to. Convenience factor aside, Abdul, Teka, and these girls have become a second family to me and it will be hard being away from them. 'Til next time.

Random acts of kindness, national pride, and of course… vuvuzelas!

Quinn, Anni, and I flew down to Joberg, South Africa to experience the first and second round of group play at the World Cup and what an incredible week it turned out to be. Never did I think that I would go to a World Cup in my lifetime, mainly because I never really liked football, well, really I just didn’t stick with it as after I was nine years old and my self-given nickname “the wall” (I played goalie) never really panned out for me. But over the years of living and surrounding myself with football fanatics (Danny, Cory, and many more) and starting a non-profit with football at its core, one could say I grew to appreciate and love the game’s brilliance. Living in a country like Kenya where there is no national unity whatsoever, I have seen how the game of soccer can unity a people. If only for 90 minutes, crucial stoppage time, and redundant commercials, it is an important step for countries like Kenya and it’s incredible that a game has this ability. Many argue that a strategy for national unity in Kenya is actually to invest in their football team. I’ve talked with a few professors at the University of Nairobi about this point and there seems to be some weight to this suggestion. Anyways, back to the World Cup 2010…

Random Act of Kindness #1:

Quinn, Anni, Justine, and I are walking to the nearest shuttle service about an hour and a half before kick-off when suddenly cars from every angle are stopping and yelling at us, “Hey, you’re never gonna make it in time!” You would think that they might offer suggestions as to HOW TO MAKE IT on time, but no, they just drove off. We start to get a bit nervous, well by we I mean Quinn and I. Anni is playing it cool like she always does and Justine doesn’t think twice about it. “We’re fine,” the two of them keep telling us. Luckily for ALL of us, Quinn and I were wearing our respective Messi and Teves Argentina jerseys as we were heading to the Argentina Nigeria game when two middle-aged Argentineans in a car yelled, “WOOOHH, Argentina!!” We yelled back in excitement and this banter carried on for another minute or two (as they were stopped in traffic), when finally I asked if they could give us a ride to the stadium… initially declining the request, they must have seen the despair in our eyes as we were really not going to make it in time and they changed their mind telling the four of us to squeeze in the back seat. We sprinted through the streets weaving through cars and crammed in. We made it on time, seats were perfect, Messi was amazing. SUCCESS.


Random Act #2:

Quinn and I were navigating the public transportation mini buses on our way to the USA Slovenia game when we realized we had no idea where to get off for the Ellis Park Stadium. This woman sitting next to Quinn overheard us and told us she would take us, she said it was close to her house so it wouldn’t be a problem. We got off with her at the next stop and walked for about twenty minutes when I asked her where she lived. She said, “twenty minutes that way,” pointing in the complete opposite direction in which we were walking. We continued through the neighborhood – passing groups of children playing football in the streets as South African flags hung from banisters waving in the wind. Finally, thirty minutes later we arrived near the stadium, we thanked her and she went on her way.


National Pride:

I never thought I had any first off. I mean I appreciate the fact that I was born in the United States, I have been afforded many opportunities that are not possible throughout the world - it’s a blessing in many ways, but let’s be honest, I’ve been known once or twice to criticize some of our domestic and international policies and priorities. It might have started with the election of Obama, to tell the truth though, it was the England USA match where my pride blossomed.

For those of you that didn’t watch this match, within 4 minutes England put in a goal which followed with these obnoxious England fans screaming and hollering, smirks all over their faces bragging that this game was over. They were beyond annoying and after 4 minutes they were already calling the game. Lot of game left we kept telling ourselves, lot of game… I forget what minute it happened in, but their goalie blocked a shot of ours but it slipped out of his control and slowly rolled into the goal. We were all stunned at what we just saw.

And then it happened…

American Pride surged through my body. My arms became giant American flags and I waved ‘em high and proud. I suddenly started jumping five feet in the air, continuously, out of control… screaming any word that came to my mind… yes, profanities included. I don’t think any of us expected it but we all went wild. A USA mosh-pit practically occurred with that goal. Chants of “USA all the way!” and “England sucks!” or other creative profanities with the word England interjected in there surrounded us. Quinn was running around out of control like a new puppy. It was too much fun so we just kept the pride going. I did at least. For the Slovenia game I got a USA jersey, borrowed a USA swim suit, painted the face and became “that” guy at the stadium - starting cheers, getting the crowd to stand up, taunting Slovenian’s, and taking hundreds of photos with other decked-out fans.

Vuvuzelas:

If you don’t know what they are, google it. They rock!

It’s no downtown Mpls. library, but one day I’m sure we’ll get there

Currently, my father and brother are here in Kenya visiting the school and seeing what I’ve been up to for the last 10 months. Along with them, they brought suitcases full of books from amazing aunts, friends, and the St. Thomas Moore and CDH libraries in Saint Paul. Before I go any further, I want to send out a special thanks to everyone that contributed to those suitcases. I saw first-hand the girls’ eyes light up with excitement as Harry Potter books continued to be pulled out from the suitcases like rabbits in a magic show.

By the way, the first book in the series already has a waiting list established.

We are still waiting for our large shipping container full of over 2,000 books through Books For Africa, the University of Minnesota, and Kenya School Libraries Program (KSLP). This will hopefully arrive sometime in September this year. Until then, Harry Potter and the 150 other books will absolutely suffice! Thank you again so much for the books everyone!

In other library news, our computers from Junior Achievements finally arrived and now we have 3 brand new computers, a printer, and a scanner in the library that the girls can use. It’s extremely exciting to see them finally have access to computers and internet at our own school where they can work on their assignments after class in a safe space, research facts for the journalism club and their magazine, express themselves and their voices through postings on their blog (http://kgsa.blogspot.com), and even have some fun with the games that are on the computer; which is actually my favorite thing to see as they all love to play chess!

Speaking of the Journalism Club, I know that many of you are wondering when the second issue will be out, as I had told you to expect it in June. Well we had a minor set back in production but it should hopefully be on our magcloud website - www.kiberagirls.magcloud.com within a few weeks. Keep checking!

Our first volunteer, Claire Raether, has started teaching an economics class and is implementing an HIV/AIDS education course throughout each of the grades. I was able to sit in on one of her classes and she has great enthusiasm and actually got some of the girls to say that economics is the best subject! If anyone can get high school girls to say that, it’s my guess she is doing a pretty good job. Our second volunteer from NYC just arrived a few days ago and is fitting in just great. Caroline will be working on computer trainings and typing exercises, exploring internet researching skills, and all the while she'll be doing a lot of filming as she is a film major from Columbia University.

In other news, if you didn’t get the monthly newsletter, the poetry performance last month went really well and we’ll be uploading video from it very soon. There was an artist there by the name of Pepe who works for MTV-Africa who was really impressed with the girls and their artistic talent and is trying to get us some air-time on MTV! Keep your fingers crossed. That’s it for now, hope all is well with everyone and I’ll be back stateside quite soon. I can’t believe these 10 months are wrapping up but I’ll be back July 8th so look out for more KGSA events upon my arrival.