Live-in for Literacy

Hello Everyone,

Today was the second last day! It was an exciting day, we finally received the $500 donation from the SGA as well as a $500 donation on behalf of Laurentian University. And with all the donations we received having a total from the week of just over $3500! So tomorrow we will only have to raise about $500 more to reach our goal, although surpassing it would be amazing!!

We ran out of Candy Kabobs yesterday, and the Bulk Barn gerenously donated more candy to make more Candy Kabobs! We have some great volunteers today bring them to various locations in the school including the Great Hall and ended up selling tons of them. As well they brought lots of yummy food again today

This afternoon was quieter than class afternoon but we still had fun making candy kabobs and taste tasting some of the candy We alsohadthe radio on to entertain us (we would dance randomly) and to draw more people to us.

It was a great day overall, I would right more but it is very late and I want to prepare for ourlast night of fundraising, and get to sleep so I am refreshed and renewed for the morning.

By for now, Destiny

Today was by far the best day so far. We raised over $800! That brings us to $2000! We have another two thousand to go, but I’m hoping that we could reach out to the Laurentian and Sudbury community to make our goal before Thursday. There are still a few organizations that plan to donate, so I think if we average about $500 over the next two days we can do it.

It was a super busy day today, people were everywhere, and the candy kabobs were sure a hit, we had to ask someone to go out and buy more! Also, today was really neat as we had a friend of ours come and do Reiki treatments on people for a $5 donation per person. Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by “laying on hands” and is based on energy. A lot of people were interested in trying it out. Both Destiny and I received treatments, it was very relaxing.

All and all, the end is now in sight, and we are so close to our goal. I can’t believe how fun this has been. I’m definitely not sick of being here yet. Too be honest, I do miss my cats an awful lot. But do you know how convenient it is to wake up literally right next to your classes?!  And while sitting at the Live-in tent, we’re making so many friends. Regulars from the library are now familiar faces, the staff at Laurentian have been really great to us, and so many new faces are coming to visit and support the cause. Doing this is extremely rewarding, not only are we doing something good for other people, I’m getting lots of homework done as well! Haha

Happy DAY 4 Everyone

Today is Monday and it was a much busier day with classes going again at Laurentian. We saw many more students then the weekend.

We got an early wake up call from CBC Radio at 7:15am, and they interviewed us live at 7:35am. It was a short and sweet interview. It turned out great because many listeners heard it, and actually donated today because they heard it! One girl came in early in the morning and brought $2o that her mother sent after hearing the radio, as well there was another donation of $25 from a Laurentian Staff member.

Mckenna did a great job yesterday and contacted many of the different faculties on campus and unions. We had numerous staff members from LU show up to donate because they received these emails. We even got a $100 donation from LUSU!! Thank you soooo much

We ended up raising more than $500 in donations today which was really great. Thanks to the Laurentian staff members that came by, the extra CBC radio advertising, and of course the numerous generous students that arrived and departed the library all day long I think we are getting better at enticing passerbyers to donate as well. lol

We decided to pack the tent into the library early tonight (around midnight) because there wer not many students at all left at the library, and we also wanted to try to get to bed early because we only got about 5 hours of sleep last night.

Thinking of that I am going to end my blog for tonight because Mckenna is already trying to catch some extra winks of sleep, and I would to as well. Have a nice evening everyone, and a great day tomorrow. If the rest of the week goes as well as today we will be very Happy Campers!

Sweet Dreams,
Destiny

The days are sure flying by quickly! Day 3 was a pretty decent day, even though we didn’t raise a whole lot of money. It was really quiet here at school, which isn’t surprising because it WAS Sunday.  The day started off well, we had a friend bring us omelettes for breakfast and they were delicious! He also brought us a copy of the Sudbury Star which we were on the front cover of . Actually it was really neat because we got a lot of media attention this weekend.  We were on CTV on Friday, the Sudbury Star and Northern Life on Saturday and on CBC Morning North today! Hopefully the publicity will encourage people to donate. Building these libraries would mean a lot for the impoverished living in rural India.

Being literate empowers people, it allows them to function in society, it allows them to have an easier time to be employed, to move ahead, and to succeed in obtaining a higher quality of life. I’m so honoured to be able to spend a week bringing awareness to that, and I hope the nine participating universities can achieve our goal $27,000. This experience is so amazing I actually wish this week were longer!

Hello again readers,

It is not the end of Day 2. We’re both pretty tired after another day of excitement. Last night, we had a little fun exploring the library all to ourselves with the lights off and took a few funny pictures as well. The view from the windows are night is very pretty though. When we woke up in the morning there was a clicking sound going off near the doors, so we must have accidentally set off an alarm during our exploration said the Librarian on campus here. Oopsy!

This morning I tried fiddling around with the webcam for about an hour!! Trying to get us online, but no luck so I ended up giving up. Luckily enough in the afternoon the IT guys got a hold of us and sent us the password to get back onto the laptop, so I didn’t have to fight with the Library laptop (don’t worry we still love you IT guys ). Once we got that we had it up and running for the rest of the day, and I believe it is still running now, although we’re not outside for everyone to see. We’re nice and safely locked up in the Library. It was kinda funny to see students trying to get in this morning before the library opened.

We were really excited today to find that our article made the FRONT PAGE of the Sudbury Star today WOOHOO!! As well as an article in the Northern Life. Hopefully some business owners will notice and come stop by Laurentian with some generous cash donations to help us reach our goal. We enjoy continuing to watch the news clip from CTV online over and over lol (even though they pronounced my last name wrong, that’s ok I don’t mind haha), they will be coming back on Monday to see how things are going for us.

There weren’t as many students that came to the Library today, but I’m sure not everyone like to come to school on a Saturday. Me and Mckenna tried to sleep in this morning, but our bodies were just so excited that we both wokeup before 9am. We got to talk to many different students, and hopefully they will tell their friends about what we are doing here. Some of our own great friends stopped by again today to bring us some really yummy french toast with homemade syrup, and for supper we even got homemade Chicken Lasagna (which I had never tried before but was super yummy)! And on our downtime we both got to work on some homework and complished finishing some of our assigments early

But it’s been a long 2 days, and both myself and Mckenna are getting pretty tired. So I think Im going to end this blog for the night. But I hope everyone has had a great day. Sweet dreams everyone, and we will keep you updated on what happens tomorrow!

Yours Truly,
Destiny Roy

Today has been yet another exciting day, even though a bit slower than yesterday, we are feeling the love from the outpour of support from our fellow students here. I’m absolutely blown away by how kind hearted and thoughtful people can be.  Our good friend brought us homemade French toast for breakfast, another friend brought us a nice hot supper, and we’ve even had quite a few people offer to bring us meals on different days throughout the week.  I’m so grateful to have people around us supporting the cause any way they can. As students we can’t do much monetarily, but just the fact that there are numerous people interested in making sure we are well fed while we live-in is incredibly touching.

Speaking of amazing people volunteering their time, we’ve also has some offers for services as well. During the next week, Live-in for Literacy at Laurentian will likely be seeing Reiki healing, nail treatments, and even live music!  Stay Tuned

Hello blog readers!

Welcome to the 2012 Live-in for Literacy campaign blog on the Laurentian University website.  My name is McKenna Elsasser, one of your campers for this week. My partner in crime is Destiny Roy, she is currently sitting next to me clearly breaking library rules…. No eating in the library Destiny!  ;) Haha.

As of right now, we’ve just been locked inside of the Desmarais to spend our first night. I’m really looking forward to having the library to ourselves for the next twelve hours. Not sure what exactly we are going to get up to, I suppose we could read, but I’m sure there are far better options… I’ve actually always wanted to play hide and seek in a big-dark-empty library. Maybe we could even have a marathon of computer chair races? Regardless, it’s going to be a fun night!

Actually, I can’t believe this week is finally here. We have a big job ahead of us. Raising $4000 won’t be easy. Luckily, it isn’t just the two of us. Destiny and I are lucky to have a great support system surrounding us while we camp out. We have a team of volunteers willing to give their time to help sell raffle tickets, candy kabobs, and not to mention bring us food! Thank goodness!

Even if we don’t make our goal, I think this is an extremely important issue for which I am honoured to help raise awareness.  I know that I am very lucky to be able to convey this message to you, and there are many of those in the world who can’t. India, even though a developed country with one of the fastest growing economies, it has the world’s largest illiterate population with millions of its people in poverty.  I believe that literacy is key in the lifting the people of rural India out of poverty, despite the social divide that currently exists. This week, Destiny and I plan to raise money to build six libraries in rural India. Hopefully we can make this possible

Hey Everyone,

So today was Day 1 of Live-In for Literacy. We started out bright and early when Mckenna picked me up at 8am to come to Laurentian to get everything setup. We packed her car up with food, clothes and our wonderful camping tent until we could hardly fit anything else into it, and ended getting to Laurentian just after 9am. It took us a little while to setup the tent, but it turned out very nice with 2 Air Matresses, our Pillows, Sleeping bags to make us a comfy little abode.

We ended up getting over $700 worth of donations from various businesses in the city to raffle off and help us raise money to hopefully reach our goal of $4000. Such as numerous items from Chapters (come on Coles, get your butt over here, your competitor is doing a much better job of donating), some Gifts certificates from the Red Lobster, Eddie’s restaurent, Korner Kafee, and some other companies that I can’t think of at the moment (sorry), as well as tickets from Science North, the Sudbury Wolves, the Sudbury theatres centres and so many more that I can’t list them all right now. We ended setting them up on table that we protected using the Windbreaker that came with the tent . Oh as well as some yummy Candy Kabobs (we had to test them out of course).
Afterwards, we patiented impatiently for the press to arrive while we continued to make more signs to advertise more for Live- In for Literacy. CTV news ended up showing up to interview up and we were aired on the 6pm news today! WOOHOO!! As well as the Northern Life and Sudbury Star YAY!!

Overall it was a very exciting day, but I think we were both glad to settle into the library shortly before it closed at 10pm, after lots of preparing and trying to get donations from students passing by. We ended up raising about $362 today I think we had a pretty good start to the campaign. Stay tuned for much, much more!! And feel free to stop by the Library at Laurentian University to come and help us reach our goal, we look forward to seeing lots more people and don’t forget to tell your friends, remember it’s for a great cause!

Goodbye for now,
One of your campers at Laurentian University
Destiny Roy

Hey donators! I have some info for YOU. Our poster with the winning numbers seems to have disappeared so check them out right here!

10 thousand villages – 792831

Tea pot/Expresso – 793791

Body shop – 793708

Love basket – 793028

Chapters #3 – 853984

Chapters #2 – 793703

Chapters #1 – 793304

Rainbow cinemas – 793161, 793112, 793807, 853934, 793533, 853960, 793237, 853969, 793806, 793238

Canadian tire – 793431

Sudbury Wolves –

Feb 4^th – 793037

Feb 25^th – 793275

Bookstore – 792892

Blockbuster – 793121

Rock Topic – 792886

Twisted doll – 793264

LatherHairSpa – 793348

If you’re a winner e-mail me at sm_williams@laurentian.ca to claim your prize!

Thank you everyone! Laurentian reached our goal of $4,000 then with the continuing help of our community we were able to increase our total donations to $5,430.44! A highfive to Desmond Maley whose donation brought us to the big five triple zero.

Hannah and I had a lot of fun this week. Fun that included lots of laughter and snorting. Hahah. I’m both happy and nostaligic to know that this week is over but I can’t wait for next year. We’ve already heard from multiple people that they would like to camp out and help organize. This is great! Our whole committee really wants this fundraiser to be an annual occurence and I think we can do that!

Goodbye, but not for long. I know Iwill see many of the faces that I met this week again.

Smiles and kisses,

Sarah