I thought I should confess.  I’m not really a blogger.  I’m the founder and executive director of Sherbro Foundation, a nonprofit organization supporting rural Sierra Leone.  I also happen to blog.

There’s been a lot positive comments lately about the Sherbro Foundation website and the blog.  Readers find the content informative and interesting.  Information that is hard to otherwise find.  You like the way it looks.  You enjoy reading the blog with your morning coffee. You’re forwarding it to family and friends.  I appreciate those comments. Truly. Thank you.

But I must be doing something wrong.

Arlene and CCET Volunteer, Foday Fofanah view palm seedlings in the tree nursery.

I am hard pressed to remember one comment that said: “The work you’re doing in this impoverished country of Sierra Leone is important and much needed.”  Or a commenter who said: “it’s great Sherbro Foundation has a scholarship program that helps keep girls in secondary school to finish their education.”  Or: the tree-planting project is a wonderful way to stimulate development in rural areas through agriculture, and at the same time provide environmental protection. Or: how wonderful to see computers donated to this rural area and people using their first computer.

So, I must be doing something wrong.

My purpose in blogging is not to become a popular blogger and draw attention to myself.  Rather, it’s meant to be a vehicle to educate people on life in today’s struggling rural Sierra Leone and generate interest in the work of the Sherbro Foundation.  

Walter Schutz Secondary School students

Interest, support, and frankly, readers, donations. That’s how the work will continue to get done.  And it’s through the Foundation’s work that there will continue to be content to put in a blog.

So, I’m going to re-examine how the Sherbro Foundation website content is organized and be more transparent on why we’re there.  We exist – and I blog  – in order to fund projects in rural Sierra Leone communities.  It’s as simple as that.

You don’t get something unless you ask for it:  I need you, dear readers, to contribute to Sherbro Foundation projects.

If each one of you who wrote a comment about the blog to date sent in $10, together we’d send 80 girls to secondary school for a year by paying their $20 annual school fees.  Imagine. Girls are not going to school because their parents cannot afford $20 a year for school fees. 

Or, together we’d expand the tree nursery program so surrounding chiefdoms can get income-producing fruit trees quickly for the coming planting season.  For $10, you could buy 50 fruit tree seedlings.  Orange, guava and mango trees mature in a few years to produce $100 worth of fruit per tree – year after year for 20 years, 30 years and more.

This is kind of like those programs that give villagers goats and chickens to raise. Except, I don’t know of any goats or chickens that live for more than 20 years and produce $100 income every year. I also don’t know of any animals that provide environmental protection by holding the water table, preventing erosion and fighting global warming by taking greenhouse gases out of the air. 

All this for an initial investment of 25 cents a tree. The next time you’re drinking a Starbucks latte, think of how many trees that purchase could plant.

So, my blog readers, thank you so much for enthusiastically reading the blog.  I’m grateful you think I’m a good writer and blogger.  But what I really want to be is the best foundation director who can motivate people to join in supporting our projects.  And I want to give you more than a few idle minutes of blog reading.

I want to give you the experience of helping a remote rural community in Sierra Leone make a big leap toward a prosperous future. 

One hundred percent of your donation goes directly to projects in the community.  Really.  Sherbro Foundation and our Sierra Leone counterparts are volunteer organizations.  And any small expenses we have are paid by a separate donation.

Convinced?  All you need is a major credit card. Go to the Donate tab: Donate 

We take donations via Paypal (no Paypal account needed), and accept currencies from the US, Canada, UK, EU, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico.  If we missed yours, let us know.  And, we pay the currency exchange fee. 

So, go hit that Donate tab.  It feels a lot better than tapping out a comment.  Trust me, you’ll feel good. 

As long as I’m asking, there’s one more thing.  Please continue to forward Sherbro Foundation articles to family and friends.  That helps a great deal.  But instead of saying, “Hey, I found a good blog you may enjoy,”  can you please say, “Look at this great foundation I found doing work in rural Sierra Leone.  We should support them.”