Saturday, April 05, 2008

200 Mile Relay - Sponsor Me for India Literacy

Dear Friends & Family,

On April 18-20, I plan on running The Relay (http://therelay.com), a 200 mile marathon relay to raise money for the India Literacy Project. This run goes from Calistoga to Santa Cruz. It crosses 36 cities including the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight. Like a marathon, I plan on running about 24 miles for my team of 12 (we plan for people to have "issues"), however this one occurs over 30 hour period over real hills at all hours of the day.

I'll get the running done. I need your help with the fundraising part. The India Literacy Project (http://ilp.net) is committed to putting children in school and out of manual labor. That means there are millions of children that are locked in a cycle of exploitation & poverty. Many have no choice but to work to support their families. The ILP takes a regional approach to establishing/strengthening schools, child care centers and libraries to get children out of the workforce and into schools. An important part of this is working closely with the community to build a culture of education. The results are impressive. A project in Ajmer, Rajesthan took 1000 children in 22 villages and got them out of the labor force and into school. This one program cost a modest $5,500 in 2007. ILP is incredibly efficient with admin costs less than 5%.

Please help make my run the difference maker. There are 2 ways to give. One is to write a check out to the India Literacy Project and send it to me (3910 Duncan Place, Palo Alto CA). The other is to make a donation online (see below). Either way, please let me know (need trash talk fodder for the van ride).

Thank you so much for your support!

-Rajiv

Here are the instructions for an online donation:

1. Visit http://www.ilpnet.org/donatenow.html

2. Click on "Donate Now" button

3. Enter Amount to Donate

4. Under "Designation (Optional)" Form Field, Type "ILP Relay Team"

5. Under "Dedication (Optional)" Form Field, Enter "Rajiv Parikh" (for tracking)

6. Enter email address and login

7. Once logged in, provide required credit card information to complete the donation

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations,

So how was the whole experience, what was your team name. I ran it last year and saw several ILP team and hope to run this year as well. If interested my last year experience is here - http://arunner.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/199-mile-relay