Greetings beloved friends,
May this blog post find you with the inner resources to handle your daily responsibilities and the chaos of life with peace, ease, joy, and love.
Invest in Our Accomplishments!
Let me share with you what your Boundless Love Project has accomplished in its short lifetime. Since becoming incorporated on May 19, 2017, the Boundless Love Project, with a shoestring budget and literally thousands of volunteer hours, accomplished the following:
• We freely offered our Mindfulness Fundamentals course. This twelve-week intro to meditation course trains people in meditation and mindfulness and helps them establish a daily meditation practice. We offered this course in partnership with the Dakota County Library.
• We held 59 free weekly group meditations in partnership with the Dakota County Library.
• We created the website, BoundlessLoveProject.org, and have continually updated it with more trainings, talks, meditations, and other resources to help you live with more mindfulness, peace, love, and joy. The website now includes our Living in the Now training, The Four Kinds of Love training, Half-Day Intro to Meditation training, and the start of our ongoing Being Medicine: How to Heal Yourself and the World training. All of this we offer freely to the world for your, their, and our benefit.
• We taught one five-week meditation training, and four half-day Intro to Meditation workshops in partnership with the District 196 Community Education program.
• We conducted 21 in-person guided meditations and/or trainings at various locations including an addiction recovery center, a festival, a conference, a retreat, meditation groups, a school, activist groups, and other venues. All of this was freely given for the benefit of all life.
• In partnership with the admirable nonprofit, Feed My Starving Children, and with our local volunteers, we organized seven volunteer parties to package vegan meals to send to hungry people throughout the world.
• We have created and sent out numerous e-newsletters to inspire your mindfulness practice and alert you to new resources as they become available on our website.
If you support what we do, please consider giving a tax-deductible gift today.
The board of directors and myself have pledged to double dollar-for-dollar the first $750 in donations we receive. That means your donation will go twice as far! But this double-your-donation offer ends December 31, so please give today.
Help ensure our continued success with a generous, tax-deductible gift right now!
Given our tiny budget, and small volunteer force, we have achieved much, still we are just getting started!
Invest in Our Future!
We have big plans for 2019! Currently, I am working with a musician, graphic designers, our board members, and several other supporters – all of whom are volunteering their time – to create our online, podcast-version of our Mindfulness Fundamentals course. Once completed, the Mindfulness Fundamentals course will be put online so people around the world can freely access it, and use it to benefit their lives, and thus the lives of all people, beings, and life forms.
Mindfulness Fundamentals will be our flagship introduction to meditation training for people, and once it is online, we will be prepared to finally publicly and officially launch our website to the masses and allow people to find us via the various search engines. (Until we get the Mindfulness Fundamentals training online, and thus are better able serve people who happen upon our website, I have prevented search engines from directing people to our website.)
Then we (meaning our dedicated volunteers, you -- if you feel inspired to help -- and I), will conduct effective promotions of our Mindfulness Fundamentals course via social media, mass media, events, and other means, to make people aware of this wonderful, free opportunity! Then, if they are interested, they too may use our online course for free to learn how to enjoy the benefits of mindfulness and experience more peace, happiness, and harmony in their lives.
We will also develop our volunteer program to establish committees that will work to help promote mediation and mindfulness in local schools, hospitals, police departments, prisons, activist groups, places of worship, retirement homes, and other locations (the site locations chosen, and the committees created, will depend on the backgrounds and interests of you and our other volunteers).
These committees will serve a variety of functions. They will research what resources already exist, generate a list of resources for those sites that we can put up on our website for all to benefit from, create and give mindfulness trainings to those sites, and provide ongoing resources and support to help willing and interested sites establish and integrate mindfulness into their daily routines.
In this way, we will bring the benefits of mindfulness to individuals within the organizations, and the organizations themselves, so both the individuals and organizations can be more kind, loving, skillful, and effective at all that they do.
We also plan to create a new training on mindful activism. This training will take passionate activists and transform them into successful movement leaders who are strategic, wise, and effective. They will learn why activism is more strategic, pleasant, sustainable, and effective when it comes from a love for all life, rather than from anger or hatred towards those suffering from delusion and causing harm.
They will learn how to prevent overwhelm and burnout, see the inherent dignity and worth of all life, and plan effective campaigns that create unity, justice, and reconciliation rather than polarization, division, and chaos. This mindful activist training will help create the new Rosa Parks, Malala Yousafzais, Cesar Chavezs, Martin Luther Kings, and Ghandis that the world so desperately needs.
Creating this mindful activist training is fundamental to our mission. Not only do we want to help people heal their inner lives and live with more peace, love, compassion, and joy, we also want to address the systemic injustices to help usher in a global beloved community where all life thrives. These trainings will help prevent those working for justice from taking actions that are delusion-based and counter-productive, so they can be more skillful and effective.
Yes, we have big dreams. How much of these dreams we achieve in 2019, depends on you. With your support, we can make these dreams a reality in 2019!
For us to move forward and accomplish these dreams, we need your help.
Firstly, the Boundless Love Project needs a new computer system.
My Computer May Be Dying
I have been using my personal computer to do Boundless Love Project work on since our beginning less than two years ago. However, it is a nine-year-old laptop whose hard-drive crashed awhile back, causing it to lose all content on the computer, and much of its functionality.
From the beginning, I have needed to borrow my friend’s and family member’s newer computers, or go to the library to use their computers, to update our website, and create and send out our e-newsletters. It seems unreal, but my computer is so dysfunctional, it can't even access the Boundless Love Project website! Not having a workable, all-in-one computer system has been time-consuming and inconvenient to say the least!
Even worse, a few days ago, my personal computer made the some erratic and loud noises similar to the noises it made before the hard drive crashed previously, causing the loss of everything that wasn’t backed up!
The current backup drive I have is smaller than my computer’s memory, and since the crash, it, too, has been given me problems to the degree that I am not sure what is backed up and what is not!
It is clear that the Boundless Love Project needs a different, more reliable computer system. Having investigated the most cost-effective products out there that meet our needs, it looks like we may need upwards of $1,500 to purchase the computer, back up drive, software, and needed attachments necessary.
Your Donation Will Be Doubled!
Thankfully, the board members and myself have pledged to match dollar-for-dollar, from our own pockets, the first $750 in donations that the Boundless Love Project receives between now and December 31st. That means for every dollar you give, the Boundless Love Project receives two! Now all we have to do is raise $750 from you, our cherished supporters.
When assessing our needs for the new computer system, we took into consideration what we need our computer to do to improve our professionalism, efficiency, and prepare us for the increased growth and activity we plan for the organization. This will ensure us that the new system will serve us well for as long as possible -- probably even the next ten years!
This new computer and software will allow me -- and any volunteers who use it -- to write talks, update the website, send out the newsletter, do graphic design, maintain our financial records, prepare board meeting minutes, and more. Equally importantly, all of the things we do will be backed up safely and securely so that if anything happens to the computer, we will have not lose any of the work we have invested months of effort into creating.
We are committed to finding the right computer at the best price, so any donations received over-and-above what the computer costs are, will go towards your Boundless Love Project's programs.
We Are Counting on You
Currently, we don’t have a large membership. We are counting on each one of you to do what you can to help us reach our goal.
If those who can give a little, give a little, even if it is only two or three dollars, and those who can give more, give more, we confidently believe that we can raise $750 from you, our supporters. Because each dollar will be doubled through the matching funds, that will give us the $1,500 we need to purchase the computer system that will move us forward on our mission to create a world where all people, beings, and life thrives.
If you have benefited from the Boundless Love Project’s work, and would like to invest in our future, please consider giving a generous, tax-deductible donation today!
A Short Clarification
Many of you who have given before, have been kind enough to dedicate half of your donation to me, as a stipend that helps me with my person living expenses and compensates me for the many hours of volunteer work I do on behalf of the Boundless Love Project. I greatly appreciate these funds at they allow me to devote more time and energy to the Boundless Love Project.
That said, during this fund drive, only donations to Boundless Love Project will be doubled. If you direct half of your donation towards my stipend, in thanks for my teachings, I will still receive them, but they will not go towards the computer system campaign, and that is why they will not be doubled. I hope that gives you clarity on how you would like to donate.
Honestly, I am so invested in the Boundless Love Project and its mission, that a donation to the Boundless Love Project is a donation to me. Please be empowered to dedicate your full donation to the Boundless Love Project during this drive. Thank you!
Thank You and Blessings!
Thank you for all of your support and dedication to mindfulness and your group, the Boundless Love Project. I hope that mindfulness has enriched your life and allowed you to live with more peace, wisdom, and connection. I hope that our community has helped you see with more clarity and courage. I hope you have found your Boundless Love Project to be a great support in your own journey towards connecting with your inner love.
If you have benefited from our teachings or resources, or if you share our vision to create a world where all beings and life thrives, then please consider giving a tax-deductible donation of $25, $50, or $100 today.
If that is too high, consider a $5 or $10 gift. All donations count and will help us reach our goal. All donations aid us in achieving our dreams of a worldwide beloved community.
During this holiday season, may you be surrounded by loved ones, may you meet difficulties with peace and ease, and may you know your deepest, most true inner self to be boundless love, peace, and joy!
In love and gratitude,
Freeman
Mindfulness Teacher and President
Boundless Love Project
P.S. Please don’t wait! Our double-your-donation drive ends December 31st. Please give now to help us reach our $1,500 goal. We thank you for all of your support!
P.P.S. You can give online with a credit card, or you can follow this link for directions on how to mail in your tax-deductible donation.