Fundraising for Postage

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Permalink Reply by Anne Powell on March 28, 2010 at 4:35am

This wonderful message was posted by Helen Flagg in Church groups a short while ago

I am copying and pasting it here because I think it has a lot of important ideas

The postings have been few in this group, but I have an encouraging
word and would like to urge KAS members to contact their churches
for help with postage, which seems to be such a huge problem for
many right now. I spoke to both our night and morning women's
groups at Clear Lake Methodist Church in Houston about KAS two
weeks ago. Both groups were really interested and attentive. Although our church has made KAS a global mission and supports
paying part of our postage each month, I wanted to spread the word
and involve more of the women in the KAS cause and perhaps find
more knitters and crocheters. Since I started the group last August
we have actively sought donations from every quarter in the
community, and at each mailing I have paid a portion of the
postage from donations and the church has paid the rest. At our
monthly meeting Thursday the women's group treasurer handed
me a check for $150.00 set aside for us from their yearly bazaar,
a check for over $450.00 from a love offering from the combined
women's groups, and they even paid me $20.00 for presenting the
program (which I will use to buy more yarn!) I will use these
donations to pay our "good faith" payment each month for mailing
the boxes (usually about $60.00 per month) and the global missions
budget at the church will pay the remainder. This gift from the
women's groups will carry our KAS circle until late in the year with
our share of monthly postage. It is truly a blessing. I urge our
Forum members to reach out to their churches with the message
of KAS. It takes time and effort, but I believe help with the postage
is there. The response of Ann Powell's church in Canada is another
sterling example of support for mailing. But we have to make the
effort to present KAS and tell them what we are doing. I found that
there was some misinformation floating around in the women's group. One accomplished knitter had written KAS off as a charity
to be involved in because she had heard that KAS only accepted wool items and she is allergic to wool! She immediately joined in when
she found she could work in acrylic! It is our responsibility to get
correct information into the community. When I spoke I took with
me copies of Sandy's Letter of Introduction, and I also attached
a color copy of the blanket made for the Soweto Choir Philadelphia
concert by our KAS Circle. Lots of oohs and ahhhs there! Getting
postage help takes effort, but we can do it! If not at church, there
are civic groups one can speak to. Please don't give up!

Permalink Reply by Anne Powell on March 28, 2010 at 6:36am

Posted this in the US group - but will repost here. this is my way of covering mailing costs. This was posted a few months ago in another discussion

THE FIRST ST. PAUL’S LEASKDALE “SQUARE-OFF”

Today at our church, we asked the congregation to participate in the knit-a-square project. Several women in the church have been knitting - and so we appeared this morning, with 670 squares, two blankets, 14 hats.... seeking help with sponsorship for the postage costs.

I had prepared a very short power point presentation to be shown during the service - just a brief explanation of KAS and loaded with some of Ronda’s wonderful photos.

We asked for 50 cents per square, for each square a family wished to send... knowing that some of the heavier squares would cost more to send, but knowing too, that given the generosity of folks at St. Paul’s, we would likely “oversubscribe” a bit and this would offset the cost of the heavier squares.. We provided a note to be enclosed with each Ziploc of squares - “Made with love by the members and friends of St. Paul’s.... postage sponsored with love by the ________ family”

The squares and a KAS display were set up in the foyer and people chose their squares at coffee time between the two services. Even the children participated - a basket was set at the front of the church and the kids were invited to drop in a dollar or whatever they could to help keep their little African brothers and sisters warm.... and some were brought to our table by their parents to choose the bags of squares they wished to send.

When we tallied up the donations, we found we had enough to cover the cost of the current mailing, plus a surplus of about $800

This little event not only has paid for the postage - it has made so many other people aware of the project - I know we have now enlisted several other knitters, people who don’t knit have promised to tell friends who do, I was asked to go speak to our local senior’s group, most of whom are knitters......and as I sat in church watching the congregation during the power point presentation, I could see an awareness of what we are trying to do dawning on a lot of faces, as they looked at the tin shacks and then at the smiles on the blanketed children.