It is with gratitude that I share the website for the Weidemann Foundation. Jean Weidemann, President of the Weidemann Foundation, has been a supportive partner and mentor since Project Japale Goune officially became a project of the Foundation. It is because of that partnership that we are able to offer donors tax-exemption for gifts and still keep our administrative costs near $0.
The world needs more women like Jean Weidemann, with compassion that extends globally and work that creates positive change.

Visit the Weidemann Foundation website today.

One of the greatest successes of the lunch program this far is the microjardin. It is a vegetable garden maintained by the students and staff. The vegetables are either sold (profits going to the lunch fund expenses) or cooked into the lunches (profits going straight to the bellies of students). It has great potential in helping us get to our goal of sustainability. Here is a photo of the garden in full bloom!

It is with great satisfaction that we begin the school year in Senegal this year, not only because we know we will be serving over 10,000 lunches to students and helping them learn through the School Garden project, but because we are moving closer to our goal of sustainability. Each summer, the school makes a budget for the upcoming year and calculates how much money they need from us to keep the project running. The first full year they requested over $4,000.

Each year the school learns how to effectively manage their money, limit cost increases, and generate more revenue for the project. This year, they have requested only $400 for the entire year! They project that they will be able to fund the remainder of the school lunch project’s $8,000+ budget themselves!

We are thrilled to be entering a new stage where we have to focus less energy on sustaining the program and can refocus on how to grow and build the program.

As Project Japale Goune wraps up for this school year, we have been tallying final figures and realized that we have served about 10,000 meals each year!
Who would have thought, when we started this project four years ago, that we would get this far? Thank you to all our donors for making it possible.

Another exciting factoid is that we have reduced the cost of lunches considerably since we began, and that 10,000th lunch cost only $0.49! Because the school is contributing nearly half of the project’s cost, that means that feeding a student one lunch now only costs us $0.25.

We are grateful to have made it this far and to be able to continue to do this work.

Congratulations to our partner school, L’Ecole Primaire de Point E2, for their recent recognition from the President of Senegal. After a commission visited the school, they were selected to be the recipient of 30 IBM computers in the school, all of which will be connected to the internet.

This is not only a great honor, but a seed of opportunity: the school is looking into the feasibility of opening up as a Cyber Cafe in the evenings to generate some income to fund the lunch program.

GREAT WORK and FELICITATIONS! We are lucky to have such a successful partner school.