UPDATE: We Did It! Thanks to the generosity of slowbutsure, peregrine kate, CuriousBoston, and mollyd, I'll be shipping the binders tomorrow.
Thank you so much!
A couple of days ago, weck wrote a diary
asking for help getting desperately needed school supplies for the Okiciyap project on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota.
The response was terrific.
One of the items needed was a set of 50 binders, with zippers for the older students, so they can carry their work between home and school without worrying about losing their work if the binder is dropped.
The problem:
The binders were ridiculously expensive. At nearly $15 each, 50 of them would be well over $700 before shipping.
BUT ...
I found some that are much less expensive. After some emailing back & forth, it's been confirmed that these are what they need.
And that's where you come in. I can pick them up and ship them, but I can only front the money for a couple of days, because my daughter is getting her wisdom teeth out next week.
It's not a ton of money, and we're happy to pitch in $50 of our own, but we need help covering the rest.
Follow me below the orange squiggle for the details.
The binders are available at Ocean State Job Lot. I've verified that they have enough in stock. The best price elsewhere was $13 each at the evil big box store where I never, ever shop. These are, drumroll please:
$3 each.
Yes that's a single digit.
So, instead of $740 with possible free shipping, we're looking at $150, plus shipping. I don't know the weight of these binders. The ones on Amazon were a couple of pounds each. Using that weight, the estimated
shipping via FedEx would be ~$50 (depending on whether I could squash 'em all into one box).
So, to summarize:
50 binders: $150
Shipping ~$50
Sub Total: $200
My donation: $50
What we need to ensure we're not going to end up postponing removal of our daughter's wisdom teeth: $150.
These are the binders. They come in 6 colors. I chose to photograph the hot pink so it would stand out. We've already bought a dozen, intending to ship them no matter what.
Zipper binder, open, with 2 mesh pockets.
Zipper binder, pink, standing, partly zipped
Can you contribute toward the other 38 and shipping? Let me know in the comments. Since I know folks will ask for a paypal, the email to use is:
cleanenergyvt aT gmail dawt com
(make the appropriate substitutions for aT and dawt)
I think these binders weigh less than the ones on Amazon, so if shipping ends up being less than $50, I'll send a check for any extra to Okiciyap. Ditto for any donations above the cost of the whole binder project.
Fri Aug 17, 2012 at 8:54 PM PT: Binders have been shipped. :-)