Help me!

This is the 2^nd post I've uploaded tonight so anyone that wants it, there is a long long long post below that is also new!

Ok, so I've been here for about 7 months now and time is flying by. Way too fast. There was a volunteer here until a month or so ago who was from my organisation originally, but liked it so much, he's spent 4 of the last 6 years here I believe. The last stint he did was 18 months long. Now I'm not saying I'm staying here forever, but I think I would definitely love to come back for quite a long time. So in my head the plan is this: I fly home with PT as planned. I then spend a year fundraising again, I think I can do it cheaper than £5000 but I haven't thought it through enough yet. This idea is still a baby. In September 2014 I fly back out here to spend another year volunteering. The main and actually only problem I think I have is the fundraising part. The long-term future plan is plumbing so I have to spend money on a course for that, I also want to learn to drive (hopefully the money for that can come from the parents in the form of 4 years birthdays and Christmases in one).

I already have some ideas:

• A cake sale worked really well last time, so I'm definitely milking the open gardens thing again.
• My local primary school sponsored me in return for me to go and talk to the kids. I could do a similar sort of thing at more schools, assemblies and the like.
• I thought of maybe doing presentations open to the public and charging for tickets. I'd talk about what the children's home does, what role the volunteers have, what I did while I was out here, why I'm going back, etc. and I'd put in loads of pictures of the kids.
• Try and get on local radio stations and do a similar thing as above but without the pictures.
• It's a long shot, but trying local TV as well.
• And of course charitable trusts.

I would love it if anybody that regularly reads the blog could message me if you have any other ideas. I will take any donations: Ideas, money, cake, things I can sell or use as a raffle prize, maybe you know of a place that might be interested in me doing a talk, if you're a business owner you could sponsor me? If you're a plumber you could employ me! I live in Manchester so I'm also interested as to how many people would come along to events I hold and what events you would be interested in.

You can comment anonymously or email me at: damsontregaskis@yahoo.co.za my other email has broken but if you email it, I still get them at my new address. Please do contact me, usually nobody does and it's not helpful! I NEED HELP!

Thank you!

Damson.