Want to join a team? This one builds stores, houses and confidence. Seriously.
September 19th, 2008 ~ CharityI’m kind of hoping I can encourage a bunch of you to join an Orthodox Lending Team on Kiva. I know that these days we’re asked to give in about a million ways, (not to mention the number of times you don’t have two nickels to rub together) but you can get into this for $25 — and lend the same money over and over again if you want, where you want. Through Kiva, I’ve loaned to a couple starting a grocery store in Cambodia, a man opening a garage in Paraguay and a man repairing his roof in Mexico.
But I’ll admit, I’m asking about it because I got a little appalled when I ventured onto Kiva’s Lending Team site and saw:
* Atheists Lending Team - 652 members - donations since its creation on Aug. 28: $26,652
And how did Orthodox Lending Team stack up? It didn’t. There wasn’t one.
Sooo … I set one up. The link is HERE. It’s a little rough right now, and anyone that wants to help is more than welcome.
But at least we’re out there, baby. The Orthodox shouldn’t always be the last ones to the game.
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September 19th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I’m right in the middle of read Three Cups of Tea so this idea sounds very interesting to me.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I had to go Google that to find out what the deal was. Now I want to read that book as well.
Yes, same type of idea, it seems, though on a humble scale. I have really enjoyed doing my little bit on Kiva and tracking the progress of the people who are doing things to improve their lives.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:33 am
You can have my copy when I’m done with it (probably in the next day).
I looked over the Kiva site and it really does sound like a great idea. Hubby’s been away, so I haven’t had a chance to share it with him yet.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:36 am
Hooray! There’s one wrinkle right now with Kiva — believe it or not, they’re having a difficult time getting enough people for you to lend to. I think they’ll work it out shortly, but I’m just saying, if you go on and click on the Lend key and they don’t have anybody, check back in a while.
What happened was that they changed their payout system in a way that allowed people to re-loan the money much faster. People responded in such numbers that they keep running out of loans.
I’m going to follow up with a friend that’s in another charitable organization and see if they do microloans. We’d lose out on being a Kiva team, but what the hay.