I am all tapped out of ideas. Here's the deal. I went on a mission trip that some friends of mine organized last May/June. The only thing we had to pay for was the plane tickets. Well, thanks to the World Cup the ticket price doubled. We trudged on ahead thinking we'd still be able to come up with the excess. But that was not the case unfortunately. We were still short before we left, and because we'd committed to buying the tickets, regardless of whether or not we went we still would have had to pay for them. (Some people had told us perhaps we shouldn't go since we didn't have enough money but we were past the point of no return money wise so we went) The excess that we were missing, one of the gals put on an empty credit card with the intention of continuing fund raising when we got back.

And we did. We got back, more money had come in, it got sent to the credit card. But it wasn't enough. Now we're just contributing personally to send in the monthly minimum payment every month because we're all tapped out resource/idea wise.

I do not have anyone else to ask money from. I've written all the letters I can, received all the money I'm going to. The balance on the card is about $6k.

Now this isn't all me, I'm not the only one trying to raise this money. Just we're all in the same boat.

The rainy season is here, car washes are out of the question as are garage sales. I'd thought about talking to various restaurants about fund raising options (ie slow week nights all sales that come in with a flyer we get 10-15% of) but one of the places my friends are boycotting besides the fact that the nearest location isn't conducive for high volume traffic. I do not have a workplace where I can peddle candy bars, well I have a workplace just not a big one and I've done it before and it doesn't work well.

I don't know what else to do. Except perhaps make tshirts/sweatshirts that just say 'Please give me $1 Thanks!' and spend weekends wandering around downtown and see what happens. Sort of a low key pan handle (which I absolutely loathe but if it would work...)

The other thing is...we all really want to go back and work on the project again in May. If this doesn't get taken care of, we can't. Argh!

Oh my other idea I'm going to pitch is for everyone to scour Craigslist for odd one time jobs and just donate the cash to the credit card, especially if it's Independant Contract work since it's tax free. For example, I have (I think, it's a little confusing with their correspondance so I don't really know) a 6 hour job on Sunday promoting Sun Chips at the finish line of a race, handing out samples and cheering on the finishers. Pays $14/hr.