Remember the little boy you saw in rural Tanzania back in 2005 who was about the same age as your son was the day I write this? You never took a photo of him, but you will always remember that he had one yellow boot and a “toy” made out of wood scraps and junk that crudely resembled a car. Of all the poverty you saw during your travels in the world, will this one image ever get out of your mind? Will it continue to help fuel your fire …

   
I met Jennifer on LiftOne, a site created by Children International to promote sponsorship. I was impressed by Jennifer’s maturity and willingness to help others. She is a very inspiring teenager. I loved that she chose sponsorship as the topic of her senior project! She also has inspired others to help out by recruiting a Daisy Troop (kind of like a Girl Scout Troop) to help her gather toys and clothes to take on Jennifer’s upcoming trip to Mexico to visit Paola. We generally don’t link to non-Aura’s House …

Dear Me in 35 Years (Give or Take),
I am writing to you at 3:09 in the morning in my chilly home office in Rome, Italy the day after my son’s second birthday on October 11, 2011. Can you remember now why you’d be up so early when you have three classes to teach tomorrow and the daily grand to attend to? Remember you are also 29 weeks pregnant and in dire need of some proper rest.
You can’t sleep because you feel overwhelmed. Not by student loan debt which used to …

Dear Aura’s House Fundraising Friends and Sponsors,
We wanted to let you all know that we have updated Aura’s House policy regarding Children International’s (CI) recent change of charging a 10% administrative fee on special projects. Their new policy affects Aura’s House and its donors because about 95% of the fundraising projects we do on the site are in partnership with Children International.
This recent change indicates that as of October 1, Children International will begin to charge a 10% administrative fee on Aura’s House projects from $100 to $1000 with a …

Written by Aura’s House Intern, Elise Cevetello:

I have been living in Italy for the past three years and although I knew what “socialized medicine” was, I didn’t really understand it until I experienced it for myself.
Several weeks ago I was thrown from a galloping horse. I landed smack on my head and unfortunately, had not been wearing a helmet. Needless to say, a trip to the emergency room was warranted. I spent over six hours lying on a stiff board wearing a neck brace that was so large on me …