See It: The Community being helped

I am organizing a softball clinic for the young girls in my town. I am expecitng about 200 kids from the ages of 6-14 to show up to the clinic, so there is a lot of planning to do. I have written dozens of emails and letters and made many phone calls to companies seeking donations for our clinic and I have received several donations for our snack shack and to be raffled off to the girls. I made flyers and posters to advertise for my clinic and I hung them up and passed them out at the nearby softball park. I requested and received a field permit from our City Hall so now I have a location for the clinic. I have called all of the softball players at my school and asked them to help teach at the clinic and I am hoping to have at least 20 volunteers to work with the girls. I figured out which drills to teach at the clinic and how to make it fun for the girls. We have many contests with prizes for the winners to make the clinic really fun for the young kids. I am going to attend one of the U.S. Olympic Softball team's pracitces and see if I can get a softball autographed by the players so that I can raffle it off at the clinic. I also need to buy a lot of food for our snack shack! In addition, I have ordered some t-shirts to be made so that we can sell them to the girls at the clinic. All of the money made from my clinic will go to my High School's softball program and will help to pay for some new equipment.

See It: The Community being helped

Friends of Little Field Home is an organization based out of Hebron, Maine to provide financial and volunteer support for the Little Field Home in Chigamba Village, Malawi founded by Peace Corp volunteer Janet Littlefield. The Little Field Home began in 2003 with the construction of a small building in Chigamba Village to house 20 homeless children living in the village. Over the past four years, with an ever increasing yearly budget, the orphanage now a large complex; home of 67 children with four buildings and a medical clinic open to the public. The Little Field Home provides a safe and healthy environment for the orphans with nutritional meals, sleeping quarters, educational support and more. The home has not only opened it's arms to the orphans of the surrounding area but also assists the surrounding villagers in need. The home provides food rations to over 20 families in the surrounding community. In the summer of 2007, the Little Field Home opened a medical clinic to serve the needs of our children as well as the public. The closest medical clinic is many miles away and required a day long journey. The Little Field Home is also informally being transformed into a local community center where villagers, musicians, farmers and more stop to rest, receive medical treatment, listen to workshops on HIV and AIDS and play with the children.

The educational system in Malawi is not acceptable and many children struggle to finish primary schooling. All children of age attend school and many are beginning to move onto secondary school. The orphanage supports the students in their transition into secondary school by providing the yearly tuition as well as tutoring and enrichment for all children at the home.

The Little Field Home has eager plans for further development and expansion. With the completion of the medical clinic, the directors of the orphanage have begun to design an aggressive plan for further expansion. Along with the currently established educational support system we have implemented, the Little Field Home will implement unique programs to supplement the after school enrichment. These programs will allow the children of the home to expand their education opportunities by using technology, custom designed curriculum , the arts and more. The home also has a plan to design a boarding school for all secondary school students who graduate from primary school to attend. This school will provide exceptional learning opportunities for the students and prepare them to a future beyond the poverty of rural Malawi.

For more information, visit our website at www.littlefieldhome.org