Update on Haiti

It’s been awhile since I’ve filled y’all in on my Haiti trip so I figured today was the perfect day!

If you’re new to my blog, you can check out the initial details of my upcoming trip here or here. 

First of all, I’m happy to tell you that my plane ticket has been purchased and all of my liability paperwork is signed, sealed and delivered to the appropriate people. Since we will be spending the first few days in the Dominican Republic before heading to Haiti, we had to search for flights into Puerto Plata. Turns out, those are a pain when you’re flying in from Denver!

Snapshot of the 2011 Marathon

The majority of the other volunteers seem to be arriving from Chicago so we were all shooting to meet up in Miami before catching our final flight to POP. Yeah, that didn’t work so well for us Colorado kids. Angel and I found one flight that accommodated that schedule but it required a red-eye flight and an additional 12 hours of travel. As much fun as it would be to get to know the other volunteers on the flight to the Dominican, Angel and I both voted for a more relaxed traveling schedule. Instead, we will both be catching a flight to Newark on the night of the 15th, grabbing a hotel overnight for our 13-hour “layover”, and then flying direct from Newark to POP. Much better!

However, more important than our traveling schedule is the generosity of my readers, my twitter followers, my friends and the companies that I have been fortunate enough to work with over the past year. Because of all of you, I was able to easily raise $1,150 towards my $1000 fundraising goal! In addition, because of Will’s generous contribution from his photography, we were also able to help push Angel over HER fundraising target! Y’all, there are no words. Seriously, I appreciate your support and donations more than you can even imagine, and I know the kids down in Haiti do too.

One of the kiddos at the school that your donations will be helping

And, if we’re going to talk about instances where I have been shocked by the kindness of strangers, let’s talk about another one. I was beyond ecstatic when I received the following box in the mail:

Yes, that is a box of shoes that my new favorite reader Maili sent to me! She remembered that I was collecting any used running shoes for the local Haitians, so she packed some up and shipped them to me. I was very puzzled when the box arrived since I hadn’t expected a package, but the shoes put the biggest smile on my face. If any of you have any used running shoes that you’d like to donate, please shoot me an email at JustAColoradoGal@gmail.com. We’ll get things sorted out.

Thank you, Maili!!!