Funds are being dispatched this week! 5 more days for Indiegogo Campaign

Hello again everyone!

Wow, what an amazing week we've had with the Indiegogo campaign! When we checked this evening, we have received $2,125 in donations from 31 different people! Not only that, we're told that the campaign has been viewed 397 times so far. Amazing! Thank you to everyone who is donating, and everyone who is helping us spread the word. We're getting closer and closer to our goal of $6,915 - there are still 5 days remaining in the campaign, please continue to help us spread the word!

We also just heard from another school - Our Lady of Providence - that they have completed a fundraiser and are getting ready to send in their donation. This will add to the $2,800 collected so far from the May 11th fundraiser!

We have been in touch with St. Albert Le Grand, and will be sending the school the first 750,000 CFA (about $1,575 CDN) to get this year's project under way. The focus this year will be to continue (and hopefully complete) the rehabilitation of the school buildings on the main school site (some photos of the buildings that are going to be rehabilitated are provided below).

We look forward to providing you updates this summer as the project progresses! We'll also be providing an update for you in July to report out on how the Indiegogo campaign finished.

We hope that you are all having an enjoyable summer!

Blessings,
Njacko and Val

Thank you for your incredible support on May 11th & beyond!

Wow, we had a wonderful time with everyone who came out on May 11th to the Gladstone Hotel to support Ecole St. Albert Le Grand! We collected an amazing $2,000 from advance tickets and donations at the door from both events, and have about another $1,000 pledged which we hope to collect by the end of June! We would like to give a special thank you to the staff and students at Upper Canada College and Glenn Street School who have continued to support this project through their own fundraisers!

Here is a video from May 11th with some highlights from the incredible performances by Soli and Rob, Naomi Tyrrell, Njacko Backo, The Reel Bulgars, Eh?!, and Mother Tongue.

We will be in touch with Ecole St. Albert Le Grand later in June to finalize the plans for the project that will take place this summer. We will be working to rehabilitate more of the school buildings (hopefully we will complete the rehabilitation for the rest on the main school site!). We'll be sure to post photos of the progress.

In addition to the fundraiser that we held on May 11th, we are also running an online fundraising campaign through Indiegogo - together so far we have raised $855 of our $6,915 goal! We have 23 days left to continue raising funds, and would really appreciate your support - either financially or by helping us to spread the word. If you visit our Indiegogo campaign page (igg.me/at/BazouSchool), you will find all of the information about how this money will be used to assist Ecole St. Albert Le Grand with starting a new small business. You can choose to donate any amount that you wish, or select one of the donation levels that have exciting perks like...

• a thank you card from students at Ecole St. Albert Le Grand, 
• a video of the students singing you a personalized thank you song, 
• an invitation to a thank you dinner party at our place in Toronto, 
• or a private performance by the one and only Njacko Backo!

We appreciate your support and encourage you to share the Indiegogo campaign with your friends, family, colleagues and neighbours. There are sharing tools provided on the Indiegogo page which make it easy to forward using email or using social media tools. The short link for the website is igg.me/at/BazouSchool

Together, we are making a huge difference for the children in Bazou! Our vision is to assist the school to be come financially independent by the end of our 5 year partnership so that they can continue to maintain the school infrastructure without increasing school fees.