This week’s volunteers brought us some surprises! Among all the 50:50 campaigns, over $4500 were raised for the MEDLIFE General Fund! Read below about two of the most outstanding campaigns to learn how they fundraised for the campaign and hear about their experience in Lima so far. Find out more about the 50:50 campaign here.
Name: Stephanie Wizner
What made you decide to do the 50:50 campaign? The campaign gave me a great platform through which I could pay for the volunteer trip, as well as raise some money for the different stair projects in Lima. I sent an e-mail with the staircase pictures showing potential donors how far their money could stretch, and where it was going exactly.
How did you raise the money for your campaign? A lot of it I have to thank my co-workers. I’m not in school anymore, which means I’m not hustling poor students for donations. I started working in a corporate environment early this year. Fundraising in an office worked to my advantage since the vast majority of my co-workers were willing to donate to an aid trip across the world. Most of my work colleagues were middle-aged with families. A vast majority of my colleagues were eager to help fund my trip since they were not in the position to implement change physically. However, they could help financially by donating towards the 50:50 campaign as well as sending me out to Lima. My mother was a huge help too!
What is your favorite part about the Mobile Clinic so far? Definitely the children! Talking to the kids on clinic has given me an insight into their day-to-day lives. They all have so much hope, and aspire to be doctors, lawyers, veterinarians and chefs. They all had amazing dreams, which gives me real hope for their futures.
What were your impressions of Lima? It´s very diverse, some areas seem very Westernized like New York city; really up and coming. However, there are areas that I’ve experienced on Mobile Clinic that you would never normally see as a tourist in Lima, which has given me a whole new perspective on this economically diverse city.
Name: Martina L’Abbate
How did you first hear about MEDLIFE? I heard about MEDLIFE through my sister who studied at Cornell and plans on becoming a doctor, and she heard about the mobile clinic trip while at school. She went to Ecuador, loved it, and came back with all these awesome stories, and since I want to be a physician assistant, I thought it would be a great life–changing experience, so I chose to go to Peru.
What made you decide to do the 50:50 campaign? If I was going to come to Peru, I figured that I would go all out since MEDLIFE needs the money to fund all of its programs. Simply asking for five dollars from everyone really raised a lot of money not only for me,but for MEDLIFE as well, and I feel pretty good about that.
How did you raise the money for your campaign? I work at a gymnastics gym, so I put up a flyer, and it ended up attracting a lot of the kids who kept showing their parents, “Mom, look what she’s going to do!”. Most of the money came from family members, my dad’s boss, and others through word of mouth.
Why would you recommend that students participate in the 50:50 campaign? In America, we don’t realize how good we have it. My first day here I looked at the conditions that some of these communities are in and I almost was crying because back home I complain about trivial things like slow Wifi. We can donate so much without having to financially drain ourselves, and I think that we should give what we can when we have it.