Lanch of the Pilot!

Hello everyone! I just wanted to let you all know that the pilot project at Calgary Science School started yesterday. Jay and I went to see Neil at the school this morning and saw our posters hanging in the classrooms and dropped off the parent booklets for the students to take home with them tonight. Everything looks so fantastic! Cause Canada was there teaching the Millennium Development Goals, Rick Castiglione was scheduled to be in Neil's classroom this afternoon showing a documentary and talking about international development, and we will be there with Joe Media on Thursday to capture this piece of our story for a DVD and possible future documentary.

Responses are already coming back from the parents and students...everyone wants to help this along in ways we couldn't have even dreamed of! Amazing!

It's pretty amazing to see things come together. To see countless hours of hard work, commitment and passion culminate into an opportunity to help children learn about extreme poverty and to help them feel empowered to make a difference and help change the world for good.

ChristmasFuture has taken it's first step into the public domain, and I whole heartedly believe has already changed the world for good. It's changed my world for good!!!

Anyways, I just wanted to share this amazing success and celebration point of ChristmasFuture with all of you because it is all our success!

Thank you! Sounds remarkably insufficient, but....thank you!

...Kim

Kim Kueber

So Many Miracles

I cannot believe how many good things continue to happen along the path of ChristmasFuture...here is a recap of the last few days:
- We are launching our pilot project through Calgary Science School (CSS) November 27 - during that week the 600 students at CSS (grades four through nine) will learn about extreme poverty, the UN, NGO's, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's), and ChristmasFuture...and then they will have the opportunity to go home and ask their parents to get them one less gift and redirect the funds towards building a School Library in Sauri, Kenya. The letter to the parents of those 600 students went out last night! The meme is beginning to spread...we have begun to enter the public consciousness!
- I thought it would be great to get Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace (one of the best rock bands in Canada) to somehow participate in ChristmasFuture. From what I've read in his lyrics and heard in his interviews it seems consistent with his beliefs and values. I found him on MySpace today and let him know about us. He wrote back almost immediately that he would like to discuss this more. INCREDIBLE! Would that be amazing to have such an amazing artist and individual backing this up? What better way is there to reach the average person and let them know about their chance to participate in changing the world?
- We visited a printing house today to discuss some of our print needs for the pilot project and other initiatives. Halfway through our discussion Theresa, the General Manager, tells us that they haven't yet chosen their corporate donation for this Christmas and have just decided that it was us! They are covering all of the printing costs for us! Crazy!!
- I was informed that a large financial investment organization wants to talk with us about being a donor. Being in startup mode, this comes as incredible news...as long as any agreement is consistent with our core values...which are:
Trustworthiness: We conduct ourselves in a manner that earns and deserves the trust of our stakeholders.
Dignity: We recognize and respect the dignity of our stakeholders. Towards this end ChristmasFuture embraces the UN’s Charter of Human Rights.
Integrity: Our actions will match our words an as we consistently adhere to the highest moral and professional standards.
Humbleness: We will have an accurate view of ourselves– neither higher nor lower, and always showing respect to others.
Accountability: We are fully answerable to our stakeholders in all our words and actions.
Diversity: We recognize and embrace the diversity of all of our stakeholders, regardless of race, religion, gender, age, culture, heritage and geography.
- A large media company in Calgary has agreed to cover the pilot project and to help us create a DVD that tells the ChristmasFuture story. They are going to shoot it all for free! Ideally you'll all be able to download it from our site before this Christmas!
- A woman named Kim Kueber has recently decided to refocus her life. She has quit her job of 5 years and decided to donate a year of her life to making ChristmasFuture happen! She is the perfect mix of detailed oriented and creative thought...we couldn't have asked for a better person.
- Right now I am sitting with our web developer to get the first revision of our website up....tomorrow we should be live to the world!
- I've been asked to be a keynote speaker at an annual event held by a Calgary couple who has been doing international development for the past 30 years
- I met with some spoken word artists in Calgary that publish a magazine on the arts, activism, and philanthropy and they would like to do an article on ChristmasFuture!
- An amazing young man named Ryan has been donating his time to develop our print design materials for free!

The list just continues! Almost every day is like this...it really seems as if reality is conspiring to make ChristmasFuture a reality. I think that part of the reason that people respond so favorably to the idea because it's an idea that they already have. We're not saying anything new - we're just creating an opportunity to do what many people already want to do - change the world!

...jay