Please reach out to me at sriniswaminathan80@gmail.com if you have any questions. -------------------Quick one minute version of this campaign----------------------------------------- I am raising funds for under resourced classrooms by running 252+ kms and 2000+ kms cycling over the next few months. Please support by sharing this with your friends and family who may be passionate about supporting education. Thank you! In the last few years, I have raised funds via Wishberry.in, GiveIndia.org to get Prathambooks libraries and medical equipment for children's hospital in Mumbai via Pragati. You can read about my running story here: https://medium.com/@srini091/my-running-story-ab42d60a2263 -------------------Detailed version of this campaign. If you want to know more---------------- Growing up in a low income community family, staying in school and going to college on a Government scholarship changed my life. Following my long time wish, I became a full time teacher for two years at a Municipal school in Dharavi, Mumbai (2010-12). There, I got to see how children in such classrooms lack the basic resources needed to learn well and stay on grade level. What is this campaign for? 1. I am raising funds for 20 low income community classrooms in Chennai and Hyderabad to buy basic resources (water purifiers,note/work books, projector screen, furniture, computer monitors, stationery) and also other expenses like field trips to planetarium, painting the classroom etc. A wishlist has been put together after talking to the teachers in these classrooms. 2. I am running the Helsingborg Full marathon, Bangalore full marathon, Chennai and Mumbai Full marathons and Hyderabad, Bangalore Blue Mix,Satara, Chennai Trail and Goa River half marathons (21 kms), the Kerala Multi Stage Ultra marathon (200 kms) and 1000 kms of cycling in Chennai + 1000 kms cycling around Tamilnadu (Tour of Tamilnadu 2014) to raise funds for the classrooms I support. On August 15th, Indian independence day, I kick started this campaign with a 100km cycling ride around Chennai. What is the accountability? 1. In the past, I have set up many such fund raising campaigns successfully to support my classroom and others. I promise to 1) keep posting updates here 2) personally update any donor regarding the usage of their funds 3) post pictures and updates from classrooms receiving the funds 4) post final accountability report / bank statement as a PDF for all donors to see. You can also email me (or reach out via Twitter and Facebook) for updates after making a donation Other details to note: 1. Whatever amount you choose to donate, Milaap charges 5% of it + 2.2% card charges. But, I request and encourage you to contribute via Milaap (this page) because that way you also support the awesome work Milaap does with so many deserving people all over. Please go to Milaap's main page to check. 2. You can also choose to send money via NEFT/RTGS to avoid the 2.2% charges. However, Milaap 5% of your donation + service tax on it goes to Milaap to cover admin charges (All fund raising platforms charge this amount and Milaap is one of the lowest I found. I request and encourage you to contribute via Milaap (this page) because that way you also support the awesome work they do with so many deserving people all over. Please go to their main page to check.) 3. Indian donors: I am sorry that I would NOT be able to give you a 80 (G) income tax certificate unfortunately. I do not run an NGO/non profit or a trust this time but am working on establishing a trust so that in future, I can route all the fund raising via the trust and also give you 80 (G) certificates to claim Income tax exemption. 4. When the campaign ends, the funds will go to a bank account specially set up for this fund raising and from there funds will be sent to the individual classrooms. Right from the time funds reach this special account, I shall be publishing openly, the bank statement and funds disbursed with bills for total transparency and accountability. In the past, all my fund raising directly went to NGOs accounts but this time I could not do that because, these 20+ classrooms have different needs and there was no way for me to raise funds and route them to various classrooms via NGOs. That is why I am taking the funds into an account I have set up for this campaign. Please reach out to me at sriniswaminathan80@gmail.com if you have any questions