PROGRAM NOTES

Jon Thompson, engineer for the City of Austin Public Works Department and project manager of the Deer and Davis Lane improvement project, will be attending the February COVNA meeting. Mr. Thompson will bring an exhibit to show the overall project and will discuss the major construction items, project schedule, and traffic routing during construction.

NEIGHBORHOOD GARAGE SALE

Organizing a neighborhood garage sale will be on the agenda at February's meeting. The idea of a neighborhood-wide garage sale has generated much interest on the COVNA e-mail list. Come help plan an event that will help rid our garages and closets of items we no longer need.

MICRO LENDING

Want to help those willing to help themselves? Kiva (kiva.org) is a great opportunity. My wife and I made a small loan through Kiva, the loan has been repaid, and we are ready to make another loan. You can invest the same money over and over to improve people’s lives. You cannot get the money back.

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on Kiva, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else.

Kiva partners with existing microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to entrepreneurs from communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Kiva creates an interpersonal connection at low costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery.