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Newsroom 2007 Million Dollar Promise Appeal Raises More Than $174,000
One bright idea really can change the world. During the 2007 MDRT Annual Meeting, MDRT members helped send more than 34,000 books to empower and educate people in impoverished communities throughout the world.
Donors to the MDRT Foundation’s 2007 “Power of One” Million Dollar Promise Appeal became part of the solution in the fight against poverty, war and disease around the globe by promoting worldwide literacy and education awareness.
This year the MDRT Foundation partnered with International Book Project (IBP) — a nonprofit organization that sends books to educate underserved people worldwide — to spread the power of knowledge and education throughout the world.
MDRT members generously donated more than $174,000 to this appeal to support IBP and the MDRT Foundation’s life-changing grant programs. A portion of each donation will be used to send textbooks for pre-kindergarten through graduate school levels, general library books, nursing and specialized medical texts, technical journals, and reference materials to communities in need throughout the world.
These books will be shipped to communities where books are a scarcity. In fact according to IBP, in many of the schools, orphanages and universities where the books sent, books are considered a rare luxury. The books sent by IBP are a commodity that empowers people with knowledge that saves lives, creates opportunities and sustainable communities around the globe.
School was in session at the MDRT Foundation Booth, where members sat in school desks to write a personal message on a book plate that will be placed in the books shipped by IBP. The MDRT Foundation’s classroom created nostalgia for members while highlighting the importance of education for all. More than 860 billion people worldwide are illiterate, and one out of three women worldwide cannot read or write, according to United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The first Million Dollar Promise Appeal was launched at the 2003 MDRT Annual Meeting to secure funding to distribute more than $1 million in grant funding each year. As a result of MDRT members’ generous donations to the Power of One, the MDRT Foundation awarded a $50,000 grant to IBP to support their book shipment programs.
“[The MDRT Foundation’s support]of IBP will have a profound impact on IBP and the recipients we serve by opening avenues for education and self-discovery to countless youth around the globe,” said Lynda Frazier, executive director of IBP. “Through the book shipments, MDRT members are dismantling the roadblock of illiteracy in impoverished areas, transforming the lives of individuals and the communities in which they live.”
Over the last 48 years, the MDRT Foundation has distributed more than $17.6 million to more than 1,600 worthy charities in 67 countries. The MDRT Foundation extends a sincere thank you to each of the donors who generously gave to the Power of One Promise Appeal, and to Prudential Financial for helping to underwrite the fund-raising costs of the 2007 Million Dollar Promise Appeal. |
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