Volunteering a whole day?

Is it fun?

Yes.

Lots of fun?

Yup.

Even for volunteers?

Oh yeah.

And the kids you invite?

It’s one of their favorite days of the year.

Do you need help?

Yes. Immediately, right now, we need to find 85 more people willing to sponsor a child for the party. That means buying all the items in the gift bag that Santa will give the child. We’ll give you the child’s name, age, clothes size and shoe size. You go shopping and buy the things on the list. Then you get that back to us at convenient drop off points or the October Newcomers coffee and you’ve made a difference in the life of a child who otherwise might get nothing for Christmas.

What goes in each bag?

· A backpack

· A pair of tennis shoes

· A pair of socks

· Three pairs of underwear

· A shirt and pants

· A jacket or sweatshirt

· A toy that costs R$35 or more

· A candy treat

Or...

You give us R$300 and we’ll do the shopping for you! Let us know and we’ll figure out how to make that happen.

You can also consider contributing towards our other expenses as the start up money we get each year doesn’t cover half of what we need to make this party work. We need help with buses, entertainment, ice cream, soft drinks and juice, water, popcorn and prizes.

And finally, we need volunteers on the day of the party and a few pre-party work days. Let us know.

But mostly right this second…

We need people to sponsor a child. Talk to your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors, your in-laws and your kids. Make it an office event with everyone contributing one thing. Share expenses with a friend. Sponsor two children! Thank you for helping and we look forward to hearing from you! Main Angel Party Boss Eileen Tasso eileentasso@gmail.com Gift Bag Coordinator Sue Banman Sileci sue@sileci.com

The 2009 Angel Party was fantastic!

A great day of great deliveries!

Yesterday was the big Final Delivery Day at Newcomers and we received nearly all of our gift bags. Thank you so much to everyone who made such an effort to shop, wrap and deliver on time. Our lives in this city can be so crazy and we all know that it’s not easy. So we really do appreciate the effort.

For those of us who have to organize, sort and count bags, having everything in on time makes an incredible difference in terms of our stress, our finances and our energy. Thanks to all of you!

If you didn’t deliver your bag on time…

We still love you. Don’t worry.

But we need all bags delivered by
October 14 or we’ll have to use part of the cash reserves we have set aside for things like food to buy presents for your child. How’s that for a guilt trip?

Seriously, there needs to be a cut off date and it was yesterday. When our sponsors miss that, we start to get nervous.

October 14 is the final of final dates or we’ll have to consider you a no-show. And we don’t want to do that. Honestly.

There is now one delivery address only:
Rua França, 186
Jardim Europa
Between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.


Confirm with João at 3082-4338 before driving over so he knows to expect you.

Thank you!

Our Next Big Day

Transnway Day is our next big event. This will happen on October 28.

What happens is that a group of us goes out to the Transnway International moving company’s storage in Taboão da Serra. We spend the morning having snacks, making jokes and, almost as important, checking these things:

• that each child coming to the party is accounted for
• that each gift bag has arrived
• that all bags are complete
• that all gifts are labeled and put into large white plastic bags

If you’d like to help, contact Karri Ware at Holtnkarri@aol.com.

Transnway makes its storage facilities available to us for storing the bags and other supplies until the day of the party. Thank you! They also send a truck to haul bags from Newcomers to their storage area. Thank you! They take the bags to Chapel school for us. Thank you! And this is the tenth year in a row they’ve done this for us. Thank you!

http://www.transway.com.br/english/home/home.html

We'll be so hungry!

On November 14, our invited guests – Angel children – will be served all sorts of food, from popcorn to McDonald’s to ice cream.

It seems like a lot of food but those of us with our own children (and our own tummies) know that every three hours or so it’s good to have something to eat besides ice cream and cookies. While pizza or esfihas aren’t considered the healthiest of snacks, it’s what we like to serve because it’s easy to eat and something different for the ordinary routine of rice and beans for these kids.

To feed all of the children and all of our volunteers, we need the equivalent of 100 pizzas. We’re looking for donations – one big donation, 3 smaller donations, 10 even smaller donations – so that we have a warm savory food to serve the children in the afternoon. If you know of a pizza place (or 10 or one of 10) that might be willing to stoke up their ovens and make us 100 pizzas for the afternoon of November 14, let us know. If you have another idea for how to feed these kids a warm snack, let us know!


If you have extra cash and would just like to chip in towards 100 pizzas, let us know that too!

Would you like to help on November 14?

We need a lot of volunteers to make this party hop!

If you’d like to help, we have two time periods open for volunteering:

11:30 to 2:30 p.m.

or
2:30 to 5:30 p.m.

During the first time period you’ll serve lunch, work at the welcome table or run games. During the second period you’ll help Santa deliver the gift bags, help kids open their gifts and clean up.

If you want to volunteer to help at the party – and we hope you do because we need help! – please contact Karri Ware at holtnkarri@aol.com. Tell her what kind of job you’d like and what time period you’d like to work.

Positions are open on a first-come, first-serve basis so drop Karri a line today to get the job of your dreams. The party is so much fun when you’re busy and doing what you like!

Wrap up the shopping and come on down!

The final delivery date, we intone, is
October 7 at the Newcomer’s Coffee.

If you can’t make it to the coffee, you can deliver it to one of the drop off points listed below (scroll down) any time before the coffee. Those folks will get your bag to the coffee for you and you’ll be done!

Ahhhh, the good life.

Do we need more sponsors?

You gotta love a donut chart! We need six more sponsors. Only six. Your co-worker wants to sponsor a child, doesn’t she? What about your neighbor? That new person in the American Society who’s wondering how to help? Your sister-in-law. The sly AmSoc board members who haven’t been in touch yet!

Come on. Six more children and we’re done!

Great shows!

We’ll have two great shows this year. At 12:00 when the children arrive, Ronald McDonald will entertain them with songs, games and lots of dancing.

And then at 2:30 we’ll have High School Musical 3 with the closest thing to Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens that São Paulo can supply.

When we asked how the show differed from the fabulous High School Musical that entertained us two years ago, we were told it was totally different, what with the kids graduating and this being their senior year. We expect great things!

Winter Warning

Oh yeah, it's freezing out there most of the time but stores start taking winter items off the shelves in August. So if you haven't bought the coat or sweatshirt yet, you might dash out and get that done with, even if you do opt for the October 7 delivery date.

Done shopping?

Some of you are done shopping, aren’t you? If you are, we’d like to receive your gift bag!

The final date for bag delivery is still over a month away, October 7. But some of you have done your shopping!

So, for those amazing folks who are done, here's an official drop-off moment:
International Newcomer’s Coffee
Wednesday, September 2, from 9-11:30 a.m.
Rua Job Lane, 1030

Please leave your bags at the front hall with the Angel Party representative you like the best.

There are other delivery points too, of course, between now and October 7. See below for names and addresses.

Time To Wrap Your Gifts

It’s easy!

Wrap every gift as pretty as you can. Then, on the outside of each wrapped gift, write these things:

* The sex of the child
* The age of the child
* What’s in the package (socks size 35, pants size M, Barbie doll, for example)

Put everything inside a large bag. Label the bag any way you want with the child’s name and the institution he or she came from. It doesn’t have to be fancy or nice.

You can use an ugly trash bag if you wish. To make all the bags look the same for the party, we’ll transfer your wrapped gifts to a white plastic bag, add a cute ribbon and label it.

Please be sure you’ve included all the items on the checklist below. (Scroll down for the complete list.)

Thank you and see you September 2 (or latest, October 7).

95 More Days!

Welcome back to São Paulo and the jolt from vacation to real life in the big city! OK, some of us still have kids at home, waiting for school to start. Is that vacation or a dose of real life? You tell me.

Now the Angel Party preparations start in earnest. We were just fooling around before but now we’re really working. And we want to keep you updated on where things stand.

We’ve found 115 sponsors and anticipate needing about 100 more. If you’re interested in sponsoring a child, drop us a line. Also, there’ll be Angel Party presence at the Newcomer’s coffee tomorrow, August 12. Watch for Eileen and Maria and get your kid in person.

The party will happen Saturday, November 14 at Chapel School. Sign up and guarantee yourself a choice volunteer position now.

Finally, don’t be shy about letting us know what donations you have access to. You’d be amazed at the kinds of things we need, not only to make this party hop but also just to keep those institutions and their 200 + kids up and running. Scroll down for more information on donations and ways to help.

We’ve rolled up our sleeves and are excited to get to work. We hope you are too!

Eileen Tasso - tasso@comcast.net
Sue Banman Sileci - sue@sileci.com