As most of you know, Home Alive sent out letters to the community in the beginning of 1998. This letter was a "heads-up" to alert everyone to the fact that we were almost out of money. We received an overwhelming amount of phone calls and letters, and many of these responses brought in donations. Thank you everyone for responding and letting us know that you support us and our dedication to providing free and affordable self defense classes to people in the community.

In the past few months, we received $10,000 from individual donations. These donations were from classes, benefits, and people sending in general donations just to help. Most of the checks we received were for an average of $10-25 -- every little bit does make a difference.

We have lowered our costs about 40% in the past 3 months and are implementing plans for stable fund-raising and income. We cut down overall costs, now have 2 (not 4) staff members, and are scaling down the class schedule and size of the newsletter.

The word about our financial situation got out: an editorial in The Rocket, letters to our whole mailing list, inserts and a feature story in The Stranger, on our website, on numerous other websites, a story about us on the 11:00 news, word-of mouth, etc., and you responded.

We are not closing at the end of March as we were afraid of, but we still need help because this is an on-going project which needs on-going support. We now have funding to operate through the summer.

So, this is what has happened in the past few months:

• We collectively decided to keep our space as long as possible to be able to always have a place to provide classes and organizing a curriculum to train new instructors.
• We're trying another grant cycle and are appealing to about 20-25 different foundations.
• We are seeking sponsorships from area groups and businesses to help pay for our free classes and workshops. If you know of a group or company that would be interested in a sponsorship, please pass it along.
• We're planning to organize more large-scale benefits to help cover our operating costs. For example, Home Alive's 5 year anniversary is this July, so an awareness week and fundraiser is in the works for the end of the summer (call for info or to help).

Mailing Address: Home Alive, 1122 E Pike St. #1127, Seattle, WA 98122 phone: (206) 521-9176 Email: selfdef@homealive.org

So, thank you to everyone for sending in money, calling to volunteer, taking a class, talking about us with your friends, referring us to someone you know, passing the word along, and wishing us well.

Thank you for supporting us, we will keep you posted.

The Home Alive Collective A non-profit organization

Check out the Home Alive web site! www.homealive.org