Good news on the Passage to India front, Maria has been offered a matching grant for her fund-raising efforts to get to India to teach victims of sexual trafficking in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) how to make her much loved potholders and work with discarded fabrics so that they can support themselves and their families.

If she can raise $2,000 in 48 hours, she will receive $1,000 from a socially conscious foundation that prefers to remain anonymous. In the first day, she raised $1,300 towards the grant –  some of it via Paypal, some on her new Indiegogo.com crowdsourcing page.

She needs $700 by midnight tonight  to get the matching grant.

In about 15 hours, Maria has raised $1,200 on  her Indiegogo page and an as yet untallied amount coming into our post office box – P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. It will be arriving in a day or so.

Maria and I both thank you for your generosity.

This journey is not simple. We have  figured out the cost of the trip to India and it will be upwards of $6,000 including air fair, hotel and food, vaccinations, supplies, visa, application fees, gifts to the students.

Dahn Gandell, an Episcopal minister who travels to India and Africa each year helping poor and needy women, first suggested the trip to Maria, it is organized by a socially conscious tourism group called The Village Experience.

We thought about it but decided we couldn’t afford it. Then a few days later, Gahn came to visit us and invited Maria to come to India to help teach the victims of sex trafficking how to make and sell potholders, as she has done here. The idea of being asked to use her art to help these women who have suffered so much find sustainable work nearly overwhelmed her.

She never hesitated, she wanted to go and we both knew she had to go.

So she’s going.

I believe she will help change the lives of this long-suffering women. Maria plans to share her journey on her blog from India, I believe this passage will change her life as well.

I didn’t even think of going on this trip. This is her art, her moment.

The journey will be challenging and exhilarating, India is a complex, beautiful and challenging place.

We have a long ways to go but we are off to a strong start, this is an issue that touches the hearts of many people. If you wish to help Maria meet her matching grand goals, you can do so here.

Thanks to this new technology, any of us can choose to raise money to do good, the structure of charity has been liberated. I am a strong believer in crowdsourcing, my blog has raised more than $120,000 to help people in need of support.

In a time of street and scarce resources, these sites have helped keep the very idea – and reality –  of charity alive. And you know just where the money is going.

If you prefer, you can also send donations to Maria/India Trip, Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Thanks for your helping in getting Maria to India, and in pulling in that matching grant. Much appreciated.