Maya’s Birthday Foundation
In one month is Maya’s birthday. At the end of October she will turn twelve. Her last year of childhood before entering into the murky bizarre waters of teenagerhood…
She has been a good kid this past year, enjoying life at sea, making new friends everywhere we go, helping around the boat (especially while sailing), doing boat-school (painful at times, like any other school), hunting the streets of the world for ice cream, cleaning beaches from garbage, and learning tons of new stuff just from traveling around.
In the past year she learned to windsurf, to scuba-dive and to play the piano, besides all math stuff, Spanish language, Latin American History and Geography, and other boring school things. She is now training for long distance runs and goes jogging every other day for 5km.
She started preparing for and expecting with anxiety her birthday three months in advance, like she does every year, announcing how many days left every morning, evening, and sometimes in-between (which is not fun for her dad and me, not fun at all!)
She has also made a list of presents she would like for her birthday, and as the list grew longer, we got the idea to do an experiment and create a “Maya’s Birthday Foundation” so that YOU can have the opportunity to help fund some of the gifts and cake.
Here is how you can get Maya a birthday gift this year:
We will accept 5 and 10-dollar donations (or more if you feel exceptionally generous) via PayPal through our blog and our Facebook page for the next month, which will be entirely for Maya’s birthday gifts and celebration. The more donations we get, the more gifts she will get, the grander the celebration, and it will be ALL thanks to YOU! Maya will then make thank-you cards for each of you with drawings and photos of her and the gifts!
We will be listing periodically the names of the contributors (unless you indicate, that you prefer to be anonymous), the amount of each individual donation, and towards which gift it will go to.
The donations should be completely voluntary. It is easier to make a smaller rather than larger donation, so don’t feel bad to send us only 5 dollars. And in case we do not receive a single donation in the next month, which is a possibility, we promise to still buy Maya a gift, a cake and have a nice birthday celebration!
We have always tried to keep the buying of new stuff to the absolute minimum and to consume less. Long before we moved on the boat, we would celebrate Maya’s birthdays with her friends in the neighborhood, sending out birthday invitations indicating that the gifts they should bring should be USED toys and books, all stuff her friends are tired of and don’t want anymore, but Maya would like. Thus we hoped to limit the buying of new plastic toys and to teach Maya and her little friends that reusing and recycling is important and can be fun. In this spirit, you will see that most of the things she wants for her birthday this year (but not all) are things she really needs.
Here is a list with gift ideas which Maya put together herself long time ago:
Steps to install on our mast for her to be able to climb up the mast (she really loved doing this on our friends’ boat, and now she wants mast steps for her birthday!)
6 month membership for Animal Jam (an online National Geographic game she loves)
New snorkeling gear: flippers, mask and snorkel.
A few new Littlest Pet Shops (small plastic toy-animals she plays with on the boat)
A new bathing suit (the two-part one with sailing pattern, or the full black one we saw in the store in Panama)
A big chocolate cake with strawberries and pizza
A new diary notebook
Hiking shoes
Colored paper and markers for arts and crafts
New cotton bed sheets
Windsurf or surf
New cool sunglasses
Thank you all for following and commenting, for getting involved and supporting our journey and way of life! To donate, click on the DONATE button or follow this link.
Donations:
1. Ventsislav Georgiev $10 for new snorkeling gear
2. Zdravko Simeonov $10 gifts
3. Petar Ivanov $10 for pizzzaaaa
4. Iliyana Koleva $10 gifts
5. Garth and Monique Williamso $11 steps for the mast or surf
6. Carl Robinson $10 gifts
7. Anonymous $10 new hiking shoes
8. Pavel Vachkov $20 gifts
9. Anonymous $10 gifts
10. Media 1 LTD $20 gifts
11. Kiril Bozhinov $10 gifts
12. Dani&Denyu Bostandzhiev $100 gifts
13. Pascal Pascalev $10 gifts
14. Anonymous $30 gifts
15. Doncho Donev $20 for snorkeling gear
16. Deian Dimitrov $15 gifts
17. Vera Nikiforova $10 gifts
18. Mitko Dimitrov $10 gifts
19. Silviya Pavlova $10 gifts
20. Boyko Ivanov $10 for snorkeling gear
21. Krasimira Raycheva $20 for gifts
22. Vera Boyadzhieva $30 for gifts
23. Dimitar Milenkov $50 for gifts
24. Mihayl Zamfirov $100 for gifts
25. Milkana Nentcheva $20 for gifts
26. Robert Stewart @sarangyoga $10 for gifts
27. Ivelina Saltova $10 for gifts
28. Boryana Pavlova $10 for gifts
29. Zornitza Beraha $50 chocolate cake§strawberries
30. Gergana Ermenkova $10 for a surf
31. Monika and Darin $5 for gifts
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Total $661.00
This year Maya’s birthday was filled with joy and happiness, and tons of presents, like never before, thanks to all of you, dear friends! Thank you!
Read Fun and Gifts for Maya’s Birthday.
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