A Room with A View: A Great View
by Bill Rose, SSPA Founder/Executive Director

What could possibly be better than serving up world-class support to customers? I’ll tell you what -- Serving the needs of the world’s underprivileged children by giving them the gift of education. That’s what Room to Read does. Room to Read is the SSPA’s official philanthropy whose mission is to provide these children with opportunities to learn by providing schools, libraries, and books. It was founded by John Wood and the belief that the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and taking control of one’s life is education. The organization began by serving the children of Nepal and has since expanded its efforts to include Cambodia, India, and Vietnam.

Room to Read works by partnering with the communities they serve to construct school buildings, establish libraries with books and computers, and provides long-term scholarships to girls. To improve the odds for success, Room to Read gets the communities involved. The organization’s challenge grants, used to build schools, require the village communities to raise a significant portion of the overall expenditure (through donated land, labor, materials, and some money) to the cause so they become vested in the effort. This also allows the donations provided to Room to Read to be used to help more communities. The investment by the communities also acts as the catalyst for developing the community through participation.

At the recent SSPA Conference at San Diego, SSPA donated $10,000 to the organization which will be used to a new school in Vietnam, a computer lab in Nepal, and 25 years of girl scholarships in Asia. These programs will affect the lives of 1,000 children. Attendees contributed more than $23,000 to exceed the goal of $30,000 we set for the conference. Going forward, we will keep you updated on the progress of this outstanding organization’s efforts and continue to encourage others to contribute to changing the world in which we live.

Since 2000, Room to Read has built 70 schools, established more than 850 libraries, shipped more than 380,000 books overseas, established 30 computer and language labs, and funded more than 500 scholarships.

John also sent his heartfelt thanks to those who contributed at the conference:

The slide and audio presentation by Room to Read founder and president, John Wood is available on the website, here.

If you want to contribute to this valuable cause using their secure online credit card form, please add “Attn: SSPA Education Fund” in the special instructions. If you want to mail a check, please send it Attn: SSPA Education Fund. Doing this will make it possible for us to track the donations and post the progress back to you.

Bill Rose

Sincerely,


Bill Rose
SSPA Founder/Executive Director