Long overdue update!

Hi Everyone,
Sorry that we have been out of touch for a while. The last couple of months have been very busy for all of us individually
A few things have happened in June, July and August that we should tell you about, so I will give you the rundown of it all.
So, we had our garage and bake sale at the end of June, this went pretty good. We started at 8:00am and finished at 2:00 as planned. Our sales were not tremendous, but every little bit helps. We carted off the leftover sale items to the Salvation Army and ate the last of the baked goods :)
In July we had a change in our team numbers. A few members had to withdraw from the trip due to various reasons but we know that their thoughts and prayers will be with us while in Uganda. On the up-side we did gain a last minute entry to our team, Teresa Gripping. She is a friend and co-worker of Shannon Sim, one of our existing team members. We are very excited to have her. Our team is a nice round number of 6.
Also in July, Tanya Witzke (our team leader) received a letter from a lady named Shirley that is working in Gulu, Northern Uganda, with the children that were once child soldiers and now are being rehabilitated. In this letter a heartfelt request for "new" girls undergarments for the young ladies came. Tanya sent a copy of this letter to all of us and it touched our hearts. In this letter Shirley had written " Can u imagine having one pair of underwear for more than a year? That is all they have… "
As a team we thought that maybe we could do something for these young girls, so Meghan Bellamy had suggested that we collect some underwear and ship them to Uganda or bring it with us. In turn I contacted Shirley Broback, creator of the Vancouver Island Baby Fair and asked if she may know of local businesses that would be willing to donate some undergarments for these girls. Little did I know, Shirley likes a challenge and posted on various websites including her own business website www.vancouverislandbabyfair.com our need for new girls underpants to take to these "ex-child soldier teen girls" in Uganda. A tremendous response came...Amy Bronee of C-Fax contacted her and wanted to help in some way and suggested an interview with me (she does a parenting show on C-Fax and I am a mom going to Uganda and leaving my family home) so, we did that the end of July. In the meantime because of Shirley's posts Underwear started pouring into Shirley's business UPS box. The interview also sparked the interest of many Victorians and the underpants kept coming. Shirley then contacted Hanes and they donated 200 pair and a company in Ontario called Nummies generously donated 200 pair. All in all, with these donations and the donations from individuals, groups and orginizations, the grand total collected on July 31st was 1464 pairs of ladies underwear! Amazing!!!! But that's not all...On August 10th A-Channel news did a story on this project and interviewed Shirley, Sarah (PR manager with Watoto) and myself. Without the help of Shirley Broback this would not have been possible. It was a pleasure to be able to work with her.
Hopefully all these undergarments will fill a need for a while and when we are in Uganda we may be able to find other ways to help these young girls with things that seem so simple to us but are so crucial to them.
Thank you to all who donated and supported this great cause.
Charlotte