Just breathe

I have to try and remind myself of this. There is so much to get done in order to be ready for the opening of the marketplace in Haiti in April. I may have a small panic attack. Our training manual needs to be adapted to fit the Haitian culture, we need to figure out how much our director(s) will get paid, and yes, it is plural. Too many people to give loans too, there's no way one man can do it all. So we'll be hiring a Director and an Assistant Director. The director will collect the money (TBD as to how often he will collect) and the Assistant Director will do the training. Both men will need to take applications for the loans. We need to train our Assistant Director (A.D) and go through the whole manual with him to make sure he understands before he can begin holding classes. These men need bank accounts so we can pay them. We will need to train via Skype which isn't ideal but we don't want to use any more funds going back and forth to Haiti. We'd like to go again sometime in the fall to check on the training, say hi to everyone etc... and then again when we graduate everyone and once more when the marketplace opens.

Since the marketplace is a new idea there are still questions we need to have answered, for example, how many booths will there be and how much will it cost to rent a booth for the month. This factors into our loan costs. While we were in Haiti, it was told to us that Haitians don't believe anything is for free, they are suspicious and want to pay something or they feel what they are getting may not be the real deal so we have an application fee that must be paid before someone can apply for a loan. It won't be a huge amount b.c the average Haitian makes $2 a day, if they are lucky. We just need them to know we are serious, and we want them to be serious about the loan.

Alisha has been working on the training manual, one of our board members is working on our media kit and I've been trying to negotiate deals with apron companies but so far, no luck. We are almost ready to start calling on the corporations we have some level of relationship with and see if they be a sponsor - whether silver, gold or platinum.  Our board met last week and came up with some great ideas for more fundraising. There is so much money that needs to be raised it's overwhelming. Breathe, Lis, breathe.