The heat wave has broken and it’s once again possible to think. I’ve been feeling like we’ve all been drowning in humidity. My garden has needed extra watering, but mother earth has provided an excess of delicious produce. I’ve been eating almost everything raw to avoid having to turn on the oven. I hope all of you are enjoying the wonders of summer.

Even with the heat, The MoonCatcher Project has been busy. Inflation here and in all the countries we serve is making our work tricky. Just looking at gas prices brings this reality home. In Malawi (where inflation is hitting hardest) $7.36 buys a gallon of fuel, both India and Uganda are paying over $6.00 and Kenya is close to $5.00 per gallon. That doesn’t account for materials and supplies which have skyrocketed as well. Our donations are down by $30,000 from last year at this time, and this has made us take a hard look at our fundraising, but also at our costs to find the least painful areas to cut. Everyone is feeling the pinch and we understand this. We’re all in this together and we appreciate your continued help.

We’ve been working on an order form for our partners to use when requesting funds, that will make tracking every expense easier while providing us with information about costs, production and distribution. It allows for the information to get to us in a standardized way that will keep errors to a minimum. Mostly this is thanks to Frank Quinn, a Rotary friend, but also to my niece-in-law who set up the form and patiently asked probing questions. Matthew Bradley tweaked a few things and asked more questions thus making the thing work even better. It takes a tech village doesn’t it?

We are slowly beginning to hold MoonBees! Even though we still feel nervous about COVID we find that if we put a cap on the number of participants (20-25), make sure we are in a large enough room, and wear masks we can do this. We’re still doing some virtual bees that are open to larger numbers. We’ll be working with the State University at Albany and Union College too as they start their new academic year.

After two years with very few events, we are excited that we will once again host our “annual” MoonWine and Cheese party on September 13th (September 20th rain date). We’ll get together outside and wear masks when we need to go indoors. You can purchase tickets HERE. I can’t wait to see you!

Comfort Itoka and some friends (shown below) requested 400 MoonCatcher Kits for a village in Liberia. They added pens, soap and deodorant to the kits before sending them to their homeland.

More kits are being made by church groups sewing for Operation Christmas. MoonCatcher Kits will be added to shoeboxes of gifts going to girls of menstruating age along with visual instructions about how to wear our pad. They are sent to girls all over the world. Last year some of them went to Togo, Chili and Ecuador.

We’ve begun working with WiseBodies, an organization in Kingston NY that teaches sexuality education to kids, teens, and adults in a fresh, age appropriate, honest, and uplifting way that supports the whole individual and the whole community. This fall I will do a presentation for them and show them how to make a MoonCatcher Kit.

I’m hoping to travel again next year. I’m missing our wonderful partners that are the reason this work continues. We do communicate via WhatsApp and in addition to texts, I sometime hear their voices and send mine back as well. I’m hoping spring will find Covid numbers down and travel possible again.