The Erzurum Project

For the ones living at States and Canada:

Dear Bilkent Alumni,

We are inviting eight of the brightest students and two teachers from the new Bilkent High School in Erzurum for a one week home stay with our alumni in New York. Last week, some alumni and I talked with them via videoconference at our Bilkent satellite office in the Empire State Building, and the students are grateful and thrilled for the trip of a lifetime!

From 1-7 February 2009, the students plus two of their teachers will be visiting New York and staying with local alumni, both to defray the costs and to provide opportunities to friendship and mentorship between them. We'll take the Erzurum visitors to museums, the zoo, planetarium, Central Park, the U.N. Plaza and other sites around NY. We need YOUR help in the following three ways:

Hosting:: For alumni living in NY, we still need one or two more hosting volunteers.

Touring: We can use alumni volunteers for a day to tour around the city, spend time with the students, and be mentors to them.

Donating: Would you please give to help us reach our goal? We will need some larger gifts and lots of small contributions to bring these students here!

Donations are tax-deductible, through our U.S. based nonprofit, Friends of Bilkent University. You can donate by credit card on our new Bilumni website OR fill out the form at http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/bilkent/general/friends and mail a check to our NY office.

I am excited to show that as we connect our Bilkent family, we can benefit both ourselves and others. To read more about the Erzurum school, visit http://www.obel.bilkent.edu.tr/ .

Karalyn Watson
Bilkent Alum - International Relations master program 2007
Director, Bilkent Alumni Center of North America
karalyn@alumni.bilkent.edu.tr

Phone: 1-410-952-9689