We are wrapping up the year here at Pidola, and we’d love to share some updates. In case we don’t get an opportunity, we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday in a couple weeks!

• Amazon Smile – when you shop on Amazon, please make sure you select Pidola for Amazon Smile! Registration is easy, and Amazon will donate 0.5% on your eligible purchases to our projects. The link is: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/82-4852903

• Fundraising – over the next few months, we have approximately 20 different grants that we’re submitting a request for funds. Wish us luck that we’ll be able to raise some money for our projects in both Bolivia and Tamaulipas!

• Bolivia News – given that we’ve been inundated with election and pandemic news, you may not have heard… Bolivia has a new president! Feel free to read more via the link here – https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/08/americas/bolivia-luis-arce-inauguration-intl/index.html

As always, thank you for your support, and we’ll see you in December!

Hopefully everyone had a nice Labor Day Weekend, and that you’re all having a good week so far. We just had snow here in Denver, so winter is right around the corner!

Some updates from over the last few weeks:

• Fundraising – we submitted a number of grant inquiries. Organizations such as the Amazon Emergency Fund, Founding Solidarity Circle, Onaway Trust, the Mona Foundation and NextEnergy Foundation. Upcoming grant submissions include Lawrence, Clif and Jewish… wish us luck!

• Board of Directors BBQ – on September 12th, we are having a little late-summer BBQ with Pidola’s Board of Directors; socially-distanced, of course. Any chance we get to spend time with our Board is always a pleasure, and we’ll certainly share photos on Facebook!

• Facebook Campaigns – speaking of Facebook, we launched a fundraising campaign on Facebook in early September. This is another tactic we are testing to drive individual donations.

• Bolivia News – a few updates from our team/s in Bolivia:
  • The 2019 accounting reports have been completed
  • We are in the process of re-structuring our Accendo SRL entity
  • Please see our latest Facebook post surrounding updates on Bolivian schools & COVID
  • If you don’t follow the US Embassy’s Facebook page from Bolivia (https://www.facebook.com/usdos.bolivia/), you should. It’s a great way to keep up-to-date on how the US government is working with various Bolivian organizations

As always, thank you for your support, and we’ll see you in October!

We hope that everyone had a safe and fun July 4th Holiday! I’m sure that it went too quickly; they always do.

Here are some updates from over the past month:

• Tamaulipas – we are continuing to scope and develop the potential projects in Tamaulipas; Northern Mexico. So far, these are promising projects, and conversations are on-going with various state officials.

• Rotary Clubs – we have expanded our efforts and activities with Rotary Clubs all throughout the Western Hemisphere. Not only are we working with Rotary Clubs in Summit County and Bolivia, but now with groups in Southern Texas and Northern Mexico. These new connections will definitely help us with our efforts in Tamaulipas.

• Fundraising – as we mention each month, this is an on-going effort for the Pidola Team. We have a few grant submissions coming up here in the month of July, and we’re always on the lookout for future opportunities!

• College Internship – we are pleased and proud to have our first intern working with Pidola! She is a student at the University of Oregon, who will be assisting us with our grant writing and subsequent submissions.

As always, thank you for your support, and we’ll see you next month!

First and foremost, we hope that this post finds everyone doing well! Things are slowly opening up here in Colorado, and we hope similar situations are happening where you live… hang in there!

Here are some updates from over the last few weeks:

• Fundraising – we are retaining one of our key partners; Santa Cruz Grants & Consulting. They have been very helpful with developing and submitting various grants for our fundraising campaigns, and are a critical component for these on-going efforts.

• Rotary Club Tunari – you may remember that we have partnered with the local Rotary Club here in Summit County (CO) late in 2019. We are also working to develop partnerships with other Rotary Clubs in Bolivia; specifically in Cochabamba. These are budding relationships, so more to follow in the coming weeks.

• Tamaulipas – we have made a significant connection with local government officials in the State of Tamaulipas, in Mexico. The Pidola Team has a conference call with them on May 19th to determine if our resources would be a good fit.

• Sister Schools – another initiative that we’re engaged in, is to determine if there is a school in the US that would be able to coordinate activities with a school in Bolivia. Especially since many schools have now moved classes into the home. Activities like cultural education and/or language education.

As always, thank you for your support, and we’ll see you next month!

My first week back to the US has been interesting.  I’ve lived here most of my life, I know the routine, I know the area (Colorado), but it still all feels so strange!  I guess this is part of my re-assimilation from being out of the country for the last 13 months or so.  Two things got me these first few days: the grocery store and radio advertisements.  Both, in my humble opinion, are pretty absurd. 

Even though I’m back in the States, we’re still doing work down in Bolivia.  The biggest and most exciting updates are from one of our site visits in Villa Tunari back in April.  Our solar panel installers visited La Mision last week and are developing a final budget and specification report for us.  Once that’s completed, we’ll just need to raise the funds to start and complete the project!

Another area of excitement, at least for me, is from a location we visited last week; Carmen Florida near Rurrenabaque.  They are celebrating their 85^th anniversary this weekend of being a community!  Pidola donated some food supplies, new soccer balls and supplies for their school house to help them celebrate.  If and when we get some photos, we’ll surely share with you.

As we mentioned last week, our up-coming event on the 25^th is confirmed at Diebolt Brewery here in Denver.  We hope that you can join us, and I personally would love to see everyone!