Get family pictures, help a great cause...

Greetings blog world,

Have you been dying to get family photos taken but it is too expensive? Do I have a deal for you!! I have spent many years taking pictures of friends and family as a hobby and have enjoyed it very much. I am trying to reach a fund raising goal by offering to take family portraits for a small donation (25$) to a really wonderful and important cause. This way you can get some fun pictures of your family and make a big difference in the life of many children at the same time. Win-win.

This summer I will be traveling to East Africa with Stay Alive, a great non-profit that teaches abstinence and HIV prevention to 8-12 year olds (http://www.stayalive.org/). This program has proven to be highly effective in helping reduce the contact rate of HIV among young people. We are reaching the children at a critical age through the school systems and various youth programs. At just 25 cents per child for the cost of materials and training teachers, we have the opportunity to make an enormous difference in many lives for just a small amount of money. Stay Alive has been asked by several governments to come and teach this program to their school children. We have more requests then we can handle right now and hope to be able to accommodate all of them. This is why volunteers, like me, are going over to train new teachers, meet with new governments and distribute new materials.

This is a very "mom" driven volunteer program. Everyone involved, from the conception, to the writing of the curriculum, fund raising to administration has kids at home and donates their time and energy. We feel so blessed to be able to have this opportunity to make a positive change and especially grateful to our families that support us. This year I have a goal to raise enough money to teach 10,000 children by the time I leave for Africa. I know that between my friends and family and THEIR friends and family, there are enough people that will want family portraits to help me reach my goal. That is just 100 appointments. I really feel that this is an attainable goal. Come on blogworld...you can help me. I can do appointments in the Bay Area or Northern Utah. If you know of anyone that want pictures...this might be just the deal for them......

Here is how it will work. You can make an appointment with me and we will do the photo shoot. I will upload all your photos to KodakGallery so you can view them. You can order directly from there or use the CD that I will send you with all of your proofs. For an additional small fee, I can also do Photoshop touch ups and edits. It is preferable that the payments be made directly to me in cash or check and I will make the large lump donation. The reason for this is that the law states that a donation to a charity (you send the check directly to the charity) that is claimed for the tax deduction cannot be made in exchange for something else. Basically, if you want to deduct this, I can't offer you pictures. But, if you really want to make the check out to the charity and not me (which is fine), you need to either not plan on deducting it or you send the check to them and someday I just might bump into you and we just might take pictures, but it will out of the goodness of my heart, not for a donation. You decide what you are most comfortable with. Oh, and I will also take donations that require me to do absolutely no work! I will even let you give me more than $25! :-)

If you would like to see a portfolio please email me and I can send you the link. I am including everything from weddings to candids to give you a feel for my style and ability. I specialize in children, but have done pretty much everything. I don't claim to be the best photographer in the world, but I am $25 good, FOR SURE! Also, if you are able to recruit 4 appointments for me I will do yours for FREE. So forward this to anyone who might be interested in getting pictures taken. You just have to make sure the person mentions your name when they contact me.

I will be in Utah April 8-16 and will do as many appointments as I can then. I will also be out at the end of May for a week (dates TBD...depending on demand). In the Bay Area I can do it anytime. I will even go to the beach at Half Moon Bay, as long as I have at least three appointments there for the same day. I already have one appointment at the beach for April 1st...so hurry and book if you want beach shots.

If you are interested, please send me an email at rebeccakbingham@yahoo.com I can answer additional questions there. Also, feel free to check out the Stay Alive website (http://www.stayalive.org/stay_alive/) to learn more about what we are doing. It is pretty amazing.

I hope to hear from you soon,

Rebecca