You Came, You Saw, You Gave
by Bill Rose, SSPA Founder/Executive Director

What a great time we had at the SSPA Conference @ Savannah. Reviews and evaluations for the conference were very positive and we’re anxiously working toward our SSPA Conference @ San Diego in March 2005.

In a previous column, I asked everyone coming to Savannah to bring their checkbooks and support Room to Read (www.roomtoread.org) in their efforts to bring books, schools, libraries, and computer labs to children in Viet Nam, Cambodia, India, and Nepal. And you did! Room to Read Founder, John Wood secured a commitment from Chicago’s Steans Family Foundation to match contribution from SSPA members up to $10K. KANA, one of our Gold Sponsors then generously agreed to match up to $30K in member donations. Those attending the conference didn’t hold back, the SSPA community contributed almost $20K before the STAR Awards winners had accepted their awards.

Counting the $10K the SSPA put up to start things off, Room to Read came away from the conference with a total of $58,800. I asked you all to think about at least matching the $33K we were able to raise in San Diego in 2004 and you blew the doors right off.

To give you an idea of what the contributions mean to those Room to Read strives to help, John says it’s enough to set up 30 bi-lingual school libraries that will serve 12,000 children. I consider that money very well spent.

I want to personally thank everyone who gave of their hearts and checkbooks to help John and his organization bring hope to those who are far-less-fortunate than we. You can download and watch John’s presentation by downloading his slides.

Again, thank you for giving.

Sincerely,

Bill Rose
SSPA Founder/Executive Director