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December 28, 2004: Original proposal for a Story Tsunami fundraising effort

I find myself thinking and thinking, "What can I do about the devastation of the Tsumani wave?" and also hearing that what the relief agencies most need right now is cash.

We storytellers have gotten so many wonderful stories from those nations that have been hard hit by the tsunami.

What if we held a "Tellabration" style event in about six to eight weeks, all over the country, featuring stories from those nations that are in need, to raise cash for relief?

How many of you could put together a program that quickly? How many of you tell stories from Sumatra, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, the Maldive, Andaman, and Nicobar Islands, and Somalia? Do any of you know storytellers from those regions? Or people who came from those regions who could be coached to tell publicly or could provide you with stories?

Here's what I think would have to happen:

1) Storytellers and organizations make a commitment by the first or second week of January. They also contact other regional storytellers and organizations to encourage more people to join us.

(Jackie Baldwin: could you set up a special list on your wonderful SOS site, of stories from the affected nations to assist storytellers in doing selection of new stories?)

2) A central person or agency sets up a web site and organizes lists of participating organizations, tellers, sites. Could Tellabration be used as the web site or should this project have its own site? I am willing to be the coordinator of this project.

3) Key relief agency or agencies are selected. We're looking for agencies that have the greatest ability to serve as many of the afflicted regions as possible, while also having the lowest possible overhead for administrative costs.

4) The central agency distributes press releases to national media; sample press releases are generated for the local agencies to adapt and use for local publicity; also, possibly generating a logo and poster design that can be adapted. Hopefully, we have support and a little publicity boost from the receiving agencies as well.

5) Events are held; funds are collected by each local site and sent directly to the selected agency or agencies.

6) Central organization reports on the funds raised to the national media.

At this point, I am thinking that the target date should be February 20th, that's a Sunday; and I'd love to see us aim for raising $1,000 at each venue by charging $10 and working to bring in 100 people.

I think this can be done. I think it must be done, actually.