Friends of TAFCOM & Kiva Meet-up

Exciting stuff happening this past week...I have started the paperwork to establish a U.S. entity to help TAFCOM and the people I worked with in Tanzania. The entity will be called "Friends of TAFCOM" and will eventually be a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. There are mounds of forms to be completed and filed with the state and federal governments, but I am steadily working through all of it. It involves setting up a corporation from scratch, so there is a lot of paperwork! But I'm having fun doing it. I also opened a PO Box for Friends of TAFCOM this week. I know that it's pretty lame to get excited over paperwork and PO Boxes, but I really can't help it! Such a nerd. :-)

This week I created both a Facebook page and a Facebook group for Friends of TAFCOM. Once we have 501(c)(3) status, Facebook will allow Friends of TAFCOM to accept donations through their page. If you are on Facebook, here is the link to the page and here is the link to the group. Please feel free to join the group and/or become a fan of our page!

On a separate topic...Saturday I attended a gathering of about 20 people in the Austin area who actively participate in microlending through Kiva.org. We are all part of a Kiva team called "Austin Texas" and this was the first live-and-in-person meeting I had attended. It was AWESOME! I got to meet some really neat people with big hearts (and they even listened to some of my ramblings about Tanzania). I felt "at home" with these strangers - it was a great experience and I hope to continue getting to know everyone. One woman, Karen, has made many trips to Africa...and she is about to leave for a 2-year Peace Corps stint in South Africa!! It was so cool to talk with her about Tanzania and how she got into the service work that she's doing now.

We talked about this week's announcement that Kiva will now work with microlenders in the United States. A lively discussion and few emails later, Team Austin Texas has become the number 1 Top Lending Team to a woman in San Francisco named Zonia, who provides child care services to families experiencing homelessness. Go team!!!