Dear Aura’s House Donors, Friends and Supporters,

Happy 2nd Birthday to Aura's House! That's right, this month on the 30th, our little website will be in its Terrible Two's. Thanks for helping us continue to grow and pay it forward. We've got a slew of great partners and volunteers, have raised over $22,000 for needy families around the world, and things are looking bright for the future! There's also another important birthday coming up as well. Aura Hernandez, this site's namesake becomes a teen, turning 13 on June 6th. Feliz cumpleaños!

Well, May was another busy month for us at Aura’s House. First, we are excited to announce the launch of Small Project #5 for 3-year-old Ashido and 4-year-old Albert of Zambia. Both are sponsored children of Shana Clyburn of North Carolina. The goal of the project is to raise $750 to be split between the two families for badly needed beds, food, and supplies. We have also received thank you notes from Aura Hernandez and Maria Rosa Rojas (coming soon) from Kristen and Ana's visit to Guatemala and Honduras in March. Check out the newly uploaded video clips.

We are pleased to report that last month’s Matching Funds Challenge by Mike Epler and Anastasia Yecke for the Philippines School Project was a success. Anastasia matched the first $25 in donations after the May Newsletter was sent out; then Mike matched the next $75 and also submitted the paperwork for corporate matching by his employer, Countrywide Financial. This means that your $100 in donations will yield an additional $175 in Aura's House contributions! Check to see if your employer matches charitable donations, they add up twice as fast that way…

On another note, we are pleased to add the artwork of Filipina artist, Wylwyn Reyes to our Aura’s House online store. Make sure to stop by and check out her designs, as well as those of other volunteer artists. Not only can your purchase help spread the word about Aura’s House, you will also be helping Christian Capin and the other students for the Philippine School Project as 25% of proceeds are donated to that project. Check out the t-shirts, bags, journals, greeting cards, mugs and more here.

Finally, we'd like to remind everyone that we are less than $1,800 away from our goal of building a much-needed classroom that will benefit all 4,611 students at the Santo Niño School in the Philippines. We at Aura’s House strongly believe that the best way to overcome poverty is through education. Please do consider spreading the word or a small donation …remember every bit helps, even $1! We're almost there!

Best wishes and Happy June,

Kristen, Mike, Anastasia and the team at Aura’s House

Our Current Small Project features Albert and Ashido of Zambia. Meet them and their families, and learn how you can help them get beds, food rations, and badly needed supplies.

Meet Albert Didi			Meet Ashido Markdady

 

Real Simple Syndication (RSS) Comes to Aura's House

We have now added an RSS 2.0 feed for those techies out there. We will update daily the feed items and descriptions with donation totals and new projects as they change!  Just another way we can keep you informed of how we are progressing.  See Aura’s House web site for the RSS feed to subscribe or use http://www.aurashouse.com/aurashouserss.xml in your RSS aggregator/publisher.  For those who want to learn more about RSS see: http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,111699,00.asp for a simple overview.

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Check Out More Videos from Guatemala and Honduras

See and listen to the Hernandez Family of Guatemala and the Rojas Family of Honduras as they give you a video tour of their new homes made possible by Aura's House donors. You may remember that Kristen and Anastasia of Aura's House went to visit the first two complete homes built by Aura's House in March of 2006. They also helped throw a quinceanera party for Ana's sponsored child, Keyla of Honduras. Check out the latest video clips here. View all the photos and read the travel journal here.

Maria Rosa of Honduras Check out the latest video clips here.

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June's Featured Donor: Anne Uhde-Platt

Anne with Family Henry Uhde and his Grandkids

Anne writes: "My name is Anne Uhde-Platt and I have been making donations to Aura's House in memory of my father Henry Uhde who died September 12, 2005 of non-alcoholic liver disease. My father always had a soft spot in his heart for children. When he traveled to Bogota, Colombia to help me bring back my second daughter, he was very saddened by the sight of poor children begging on the streets. Last June, I researched various sponsor-a-child-type organizations for him and found out about Children International. My mom and dad then began to sponsor Divisay, a young girl in Colombia whom my mom continues to sponsor. While helping my parents choose a child to sponsor, my husband Vince and I decided to become sponsors in order to honor our children's birthcountries. Our daughters Bethany (7) and Melanie (4) were both born in Bogota, Colombia and each spent the first three months of their lives in the care of Ayudame orphanage. Our son Francisco (5) was born in Quito, Ecuador and lived with a Holt International foster family there until he joined our family at the age of 3 years. The children we sponsor through Children International are Angie, a 6-year-old in Colombia, and John, a 6-year-old in Ecuador. I found out about Aura's House on the Children International website and I liked the idea of a site that focused, as its home page states, on "small projects that bring big changes to the lives of families in developing countries." I think that my father would really approve of the work that Aura's House is doing in providing poor children with adequate shelter and necessary household items and so do I."

© Kristen Palana 2003-2008.
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