What are the goals?

I've been thinking long and hard about setting two goals: the amount of weight I should aim to lose by December 31st and how much money I would like to raise for the Berga school which is formally called the Maru-Chebot First Cycle (grade 1-4) Elementary School located in Ada Berga Woreda, Chebot Kebele, Ethiopia. Having specific targets focuses the mind for weight loss and fundraising!

Let's focus on the second question - how much money should I realistically try to raise? I want to be ambitious and set a high goal so as to not undershoot. Yet what is that in an age of the Internet and ideas catching on? I suppose if things go well, I could always revise the number.

I want the amount raised to make a real difference in the lives of those living in the community. I asked once for details on what the school needed and friends at the Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society who are working with the community gave me a detailed list. To round up, it would be $25,000. Yet this would only be to repair and upgrade the school for grades 1-4 and perhaps expand. But for reasons that will become obvious, the real goal is to expand to grade 8 so these little ones aren't unrealistically expected to walk 5km each way to go to school for older kids.

And what about supporting all the other terrific and equally vital services that are part of the integrated community effort: the micro-credit program to give women the capital they need for producing butter, the medical supplies and modest salaries for young women with one year of medical education to provide a very basic maternal and children's health services, maintenance for the well that provides safe drinking water, resources to upgrade the rudimentary sanitation facilities, resources so the community continues to refrain from cutting the wetland grasses to preserve the nesting area of the White-winged Flufftail, resources so the community can develop eco-tourism around the Flufftail that only nests in this wetland and in a few places in South Africa.

So....I need a higher target for the need is much greater.