Friends,

Beginning in January I will be riding 7265 miles from Khartoum to Cape Town. My hope is to raise a dollar for each mile I will travel for a great local children's program in Cape Town: The Manenberg Afterschool Development Centre. Please consider supporting them-- and helping me reach my goal of raising $7265 for 7265 miles!

Like any good fundraiser, I've got a few incentive programs to encourage donations. Lots of details about those, about the wonderful Manenberg Afterschool program and the ride are below.

The Manenberg Afterschool Development Centre:

The Centre does wonderful work providing after school care and programming for children in Cape Town's Manenberg area and nearby townships. One of its leaders is a personal friend and I feel very lucky to be helping to fundraise for the program.

This is their facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/manenbergafterschool.developmentcentre?fref=ts

And some articles writtern about them (related to funding they receive from the Amy Biehl foundation):

http://www.amybiehl.co.za/latest-news/manenberg-centre-press-release/

http://wecanchange.co.za/Editors/Articles/tabid/55/itemid/53/amid/376/new-afterschool-centre-in-manenberg.aspx

The Khartoum to Cape Town ride:

As some of you know, this trip has been a 'dream deferred' for me. I was planning to ride in 2011, then this wild thing called 'health reform' came along and kept my hands full for awhile. But, three years later, now its time to go!

My trip begins on January 10th in Kartoum and ends May 10th in Cape Town. We will be riding almost the full length of Africa (no Egypt this year), just about 7,265 miles or about 70 miles each day we are on our bikes.

I will be traveling with the Tour d'Afrique. They will kindly take care of transporting our stuff and feeding me, so that I can focus on pedaling, and then pedaling some more, and then pedaling some more...

http://tourdafrique.com/tour-overview/?t=tour-dafrique#/?t=tour-dafrique

Sweeting the deal!

$7265 is quite a bit of money to raise! So an incentive for the most generous among you: If you're very generous and a little OCD, please consider a 'penny per mile' donation ($72.65). And anyone donating at this level will receive a postcard from me from every country I travel though. Subject somewhat to the vagueries of various African postal systems, you'll receive old-timey hand written postcards (and stamps!) from Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa!

Or, alternatively, consider a $25 donation and I will be glad to drop you a post card from any of the countries I pedal through!