Grateful

So, this blog post is a little late, but they say "better late than never" so here goes....

This past Thursday, we here in America celebrated Thanksgiving, a holiday which (despite its problematic historical significance) is a much beloved day by families and friends across our fifty states.  As written in the International Business Times, "Thanksgiving is a day to count one's blessings, reconnect with friends and relatives, and gorge on traditional turkey day fare while trying to avoid popping any seams.  Just like the first Thanksgiving feast, when New Englanders and Native Americans came together to share a meal, American families across the country will join around the dinner table to celebrate what was historically the end of the harvest season."

To apply this sentiment to The Toa Nafasi Project, we can say that the year up until now has been the planting of the crops, the tilling of the fields, and now finally, we enjoy the fruits of our labor: the bounty of the harvest.  On behalf of myself and everyone on Team Toa from Moshi, Arusha, and Dar es Salaam to Washington DC, New York City, and Boston, and points far beyond, we want to take this opportunity to give thanks for the bounty of 2016.

Indeed, we all worked hard - me and Heidi on operations, Gasto on facilitation, both boards with advice and guidance, Hyasinta and the teachers in school, our referral partners who provided wonderful care to our schoolchildren, and of course, those children themselves, who worked hard not only to succeed in Grade One but to move on to Grade Two with triumphant exuberance.

We are thankful for these successes, to be sure, but we know well that they could not have been achieved without YOU, our blog readers and email recipients, our Twitter followers and Facebook friends, and most of all, our donors.  Your support cannot be measured.  That you care, that you give, that you love - it means the world.  Happy (belated) Thanksgiving, everybody!