A Thousand Paper Cranes

The time has come for me to end the A Thousand Paper Cranes project. There has not been as much interest in the project as I had hoped, and events in my personal life have made it more difficult for me to find time to maintain any of my web projects.

I will check my ATPC mailbox in a couple of days to see if there are any last cranes that need to be logged and any last funds to be collected. After I do so I will mail a final check to First Candle.

I will also (randomly) choose one person from the list of donors to receive the glass crane and will send it on to him/her.

Thanks to any of you who participated in this project.

Your Webmistress, Bianca

If this is your first time here, please read the Project Description.

Saturday I received the twenty-second thru twenty-seventh cranes and donations, from donor N.H.

If this is your first time here, please read the Project Description.

A while ago I received the twentieth crane and donation, from donor Megan, in memory of Kevin Charles, 5 days old.

I also received the twenty-first crane from donor Patti.

I’m sorry that it took me a bit to get these posted. My fiance and I are in the process of buying a house, and all the things associated with that are taking up a big chunk of my time and mental capacity. Thank you for your donations!

If this is your first time here, please read the Project Description.

Today I received the nineteenth crane and donation from donor David.

I apologize for the blurry picture, David, but I just recently replaced my camera and I haven’t mastered it yet. I’ll post a new one later this evening or tomorrow.

David also sent me two extra pieces of this pretty floral origami paper “mainly to hide the dollar from the would-be thieves”. I’m going to fold a couple of cranes of my own and donate a couple dollars as well.

If this is your first time here, please read the Project Description.

Today I received the eighteenth crane and donation from donor Cameron.

If this is your first time here, please read the Project Description.

Today I received the seventeenth crane and donation from donor Shantille.

I received the thank you letter from First Candle earlier this week. I’m posting it here so that concerned folks can see that funds given to me through this project do in fact get donated to First Candle.

You can click on the image to the left for a larger view of the letter. Note that all contact information for First Candle is included on the letter, so if there are further concerns about the legitimacy of this project you can contact them directly to confirm that they have received funds from me.

I am making some changes to my personal site, and I am hoping that through greater interaction with the wider blogging community that I will see more participation in the ATPC project. If you want to support ATPC with more than a dollar and a crane you can link to this site using one of the banners I’ve provided.

Thank you to all the folks who have participated up to this point!

I just wanted to check in and let you all know that I sent a check to First Candle about a week ago. I have not seen the amount debited from my checking account yet, and I have not heard from Heather regarding the donation. I wanted to make sure that you all knew as much as I do, though!

It has certainly been a while since I have added anything to this site. It is not for lack of interest on my part, but rather because of a lack of activity on the part of incoming donations. However, evidently the lack of updates has caused concern for at least one person interested in the First Candle cause, so I thought I would drop in and say hello and give you a little peek behind the scenes to hopefully allay any concerns that potential donors might have.

I received this communication from Heather McGraw at First Candle today:

Dear Ms. Roland,
I have received this email from (name withheld) and tend to find it a bit disturbing. As First Candle’s reputation is on the line here, I need to receive immediate feedback from you regarding the status of The Thousand Paper Cranes project.

Please get back to me as soon as you receive this email so either you or I can get in touch with (name withheld) and allay her concerns. Thank you very much.

Heather C. McGraw

Development Manager

First Candle

The email she received said this:

Is this project ongoing? Have you received any donations from it? This person’s web-site is not being updated,and I am wondering about the status of it. Still have not made my crane,but am concerned now. I know that First Candle is very legitimate and reputable,and I have donated to it directly. Any info for me?

And my response was as follows (the relevant bits, anyway):

I appreciate you emailing me about your concerns. The reason
there has not been any recent activity on the website is because I
have not received any donations. I suppose I could post and just say
“business as usual” so that folks know that the project is still
active. As far as you not receiving any donations it has been my
intent that I would not forward anything on to you until I had
received the full 1 thousand dollars. However if it will help to allay
your concerns and lend legitimacy to my project I would be happy to
forward on to you what little I  have received up until now. Let me
know what you would like me to do.

I certainly understand that folks who don’t know me won’t naturally assume that this project is completely forthright. In the interest of lending additional legitimacy to the project for those skeptical folks out there I am going to go ahead and send the funds I have gathered so far to First Candle as soon as I get home from my weekend away. I will ask for a receipt or other documentation from Ms. McGraw so that I can post it here for you all to see.

If this is your first time here, please read the Project Description.

Today I received the sixteenth crane and donation from donor Joel.