Dear Friends,
As we head into the final quarter of 2009, I can’t help feeling that it has been a very good year for the Supporting Success Scholarship Fund and the children that we sponsor, and I hope that it will only get better. In the past nine months, we have not only sponsored 25 students in Zambia and 20 in Bangladesh (our largest classes ever), but we also built a 5th grade classroom at the Mackenzie Community School in Zambia, which will allow us to keep more students there in school longer. We are now also exploring possibilities to build a school in Bangladesh in the coming months, a project that we are very excited about.
Over the course of this pat school year, our students that you are supporting in Zambia have all been working hard at the Dzikomo Government School. They have been studying diligently and are currently on track to pass their grades at the end of the school year in December. The 5th grade classroom that we built at the Mackenzie Community School with a grant from the Posterus Foundation (www.posterus.org) is complete and is awaiting final approval from the government to allow the new class of 5th graders to start next year. In the meantime, the classroom is being used by the school for its art classes, for small group sessions for students who have fallen behind, and as an exam room. The classroom has been furnished by two volunteers from Switzerland who built benches and tables and who also brought books for the library. IRFF volunteers at the United Nations International School in New York also collected books and school supplies for the students over this past year and have just recently shipped them to Zambia.
Here at Supporting Success, we are now gearing up for our end-of-year fundraiser and would deeply appreciate your continued support for the children whose lives you have touched so profoundly. While we anticipate that the Mackenzie Community School will be able to hold a 5th grade class next year and will therefore not require scholarships for a new class, the students that we sponsored in past years still need your support. We realize that this has been a difficult year for many of us, but without your help these students would not be attending school right now and your continued generosity is critical to allowing them to continue their education for another year.
Please look for Supporting Success in GlobalGiving’s upcoming “Give More - Get More Challenge”, where your donations will be matched by up to 50% beginning November 10th, or donate now to help Supporting Success earn prize money in Facebook’s “America’s Giving Challenge” at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/44294/7071163?m=611088da.
Thank you again for your generosity and support.

Links:

• Supporting Success on Facebook

Pictures:

• the new 5th grade classroom (JPG)
• students in the new classroom (JPG)