Thousands of math-hurting Tulsans urgently need for the MatheLite Project to generate its video library of free MatheLite Activity Guides, ASAP. You might be surprised at the various ways in which you can help. A few of the most pressing kinds of needs are listed further below. More specific details are itemized on the Help Now web page.

It takes a community-wide team of individuals, organizations, and agencies ... to provide the very broad spectrum of services needed for conducting this project. Some of the needed services can be got only by paying money ... such as some professional or technical services. Other services might be donated by Tulsa-area organizations or individuals. Offers for services (donated or purchased) are now being tabulated ... so that the team can know who is available to provide what kinds of services. Sign onto that list by offering your services to office@mathelite.org.

Can your organization share the workload? At little or no extra cost, many businesses, service agencies, non-profit organizations, etc. can take on specific Mathelite Project tasks that are closely related to their normal operations. Lead your organization to become a MatheLite Project Collaborator by sending a "collaboration" e-mail to office@mathelite.org ... inviting a Project representative to a meeting for exploring possibilities. Should your organization also be represented on the Project's Community Advisory Council?

Check out the web pages that list immediate needs for services, equipment, and supplies. Examples of sharing the workload include: printing stationary or literature, filming or editing the MatheLite videos, developing mailing lists, circulating literature or free MatheLite DVDs, repairing or loaning equipment, hosting meetings, transporting students or volunteers or goods, performing web projects, providing bookkeeping or clerical or computer guru services.

Got help to sell? Looking for a part-time job? Are you in a business that might help the MatheLite Project do its job? Get onto its contact list by sending a "list me (or list us) as (a) service provider(s)" e-mail to office@mathelite.org. Identify the contact person's name, e-mail, and telephone ... and any web pages that describe some of the services that you might offer. The office will reply with a questionnaire to explore details of your offers. To help the office to know which questionnaire to send, please include a single sentence that gives a rough description of what kinds of services you wish to sell.

Be patient. At the end of 2011, MatheLite still was just a newborn infant project. It had been given some "baby gifts" of money, material donations, and volunteered help. It entered 2012 having no "allowance" to support its operations and growth. Its ability to purchase services awaits the raising of funds. But the Project must plan and budget for the months ahead ... and it needs to know what you want to offer, at what costs. Get onto the Project's Directory of Service Providers. For a list of immediate needs for services, visit the Help Now web page.

Got some time to give? As donated services go, the playing field is wide open. In 2011, Community Council members donated hours of personal time for strategic planning conferences. Another man who had a truck served only to make one important delivery to the Center. One woman started the Project's Children's Math Theater. Another man and family worked an exhibition booth. Another woman initiated the fund-raising campaign by producing a lengthy mailing list ... another took pictures for a slide show ... another took on the task of designing a website ... another reupholstered a worn bench ... another served as a volunteer member of the Project Staff, doing office work and video production.

You might be surprised at how you might help. For a list of immediate needs for services, visit the Help Now web page. Even giving just a little help, once in a while, sometimes greatly helps progress. Whatever your personal talents, interests, contacts, passions and availability, there probably is something helpful that you could do from your home, library, community, workplace, vehicle, or from the Math Fitness Center. Team up with friends to pitch in, together.

Send a noncommittal "willing to help" e-mail to office@mathelite.org with your name, telephone number, and a brief indication of what kinds of things you like to do. The office will reply with a questionnaire to explore the possibilities.

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For a list of immediate needs for services, visit the Help Now web page. Below are listed some general areas in which services are immediately needed: Council development; Local fund raising; Movie production; Website development; Organization networking; Publications; Network data; Workshop planning; and Supportive staff work.

Council Development: the Project's "shareholders" include all Tulsans who invest any time, effort, money, etc. toward serving the Project's math-needy "consumer" Tulsans. The project's "members" constitute its Community Advisory Council which represents the interests of all Tulsa-area shareholders.

Every community leader from the metropolitan area is a prospective candidate for membership on the Council. Every Tulsa-area organization, industry, and community which has a substantial interest in the Project's effectiveness and impact should be represented on the Council. As the Council becomes quite large, it will be led by its own executive board of active leaders. But for now, a small "parenting committee" of Council members must recruit, screen, and select additional Council members and set up the Council's procedures. In order for the Council's "parents" to effectively "spawn" a large and appropriate Council, the parents must become very well versed about the Project ... and passionate about its mission. Who do you know that should help "parent" the Community Advisory Council?

Local Fund Raising: the Project's survival depends on its monetary income. When the Project later gains enough momentum, it will attract grants from government agencies and philanthropic foundations. But until then, the Project must survive on donations from Tulsa-area individuals and organizations. Non-monetary donations do help to cut the costs of operations and of progress, but those donations cannot cover the Project's monetary expenses.

Professional fund-raisers might assist, but they typically require contracts and down payments. As the Math Literacy Project enters 2012, neither of those requirements can be met. Neither does the Project presently have the funds to employ even part-time help for soliciting local donations. Instead, all local donations must be generated by volunteers and by collaborating local organizations. Although it is up to the Council to acquire the necessary funding, most of its "staff" work must be donated by volunteers who are not members of the Council.

Tulsa-area citizens, businesses, and organizations must be informed about the Project, and asked to endorse and support it. Funds are handled by the Advisory Council's Treasurer; but receipts must be issued and careful records must be kept. Volunteer help is needed from persons who have such bookkeeping and billing experience. Other specific ways in which you might help are very much open to your own imagination. Just send a "help to raise funds" e-mail to gifts@mathelite.org. Include your name, telephone number, and any ideas about how you might be willing to help raise funds.

The Project office has many ideas about how you might easily and conveniently help to raise funds ... even without personally asking for donations. However, one option is for you to publicly endorse the Math Literacy Project ... by being publicly listed as a MatheLite Project Patron, on the website and in published documents ... and then inviting other individuals and organizations to do likewise. All MatheLite Patrons are to receive the Project's e-Newsletter and copies of its "pre-view" MatheLite Videos.

The number of MatheLite Project patrons is an indication of the extent of public concerns about Tulsa's math-suppressed. The total amount of patrons' donations is an indication of the present strength of public concerns. All Patrons are asked to invite other Tulsans to enroll as Patrons ... so that the numbers can rapidly increase. In the tithing spirit that abounds in Oklahoma, all current MatheLite Patrons make and fulfill pledges to automatically make monthly donations of $1 or more ... preferably by using their own banks' bill payer service.

Numerical statistics about public concerns can be an important factor for later acquiring grant monies. Many grants depend on evidence of public concerns about whatever public needs are being addressed by the grant applicants ... in the case of MatheLite, the educational handicaps of math-needy adults, families, communities, and schools. Since donations can be made through paypal, via this website, volunteers need not ask for money ... only for pledges. But volunteers are needed also for effectively managing the "MatheLite Patrons Program".

Movie Production: the Project's MatheLite videos are first drafted as amateur versions (as with the "tortilla fractioning" video on the Overview page) ... and later modified through test-piloting in in the Project's Math Workshops. The Project thus achieves pre-view versions that are instructionally effective, but are of amateur video quality. The pre-views then are used by professional video makers to make polished versions for circulation to the public. Much amateur theatric and video work is needed for producing the pre-view versions. Experienced teachers can be very helpful.

Website development: the Project's websites are crucial for its growth and its progress. They require the services of website designers, site-management webmasters, authors, graphic artists, editors and more. A great opportunity for students who are into "videography".

Organization Network Liaison: the Project needs effective working relationships with Tulsa-area organizations whose concerns and/or activities relate to the math-needy adults. The Executive Board of the Project's Community Advisory Council needs a compendium of all such organizations ... with a frequently updated brief profile of each. This is a combination of web searching and personal communications with such organizations.

Project Publishing: the Project's local networking must include publishing of: (1) DVD videos and slide shows; (2) websites; (3) formal reports to "shareholders"; (4) Project Newsletters; (5) press releases; and (6) announcements, advertisements, and informational flyers and pamphlets. The Project needs publishers, editors, writers, copy readers, artists, technicians, and circulation clerks.

Network Directories: the Project must create and maintain directories: (1) of individuals who are willing to help; (2) of potential and active collaborating organizations; (3) of providers of cost-bearing services; (3) of Tulsa-area businesses, associations, and not-for-profit organizations whose missions connect with the MatheLite Project's; (4) of local colleges, training programs, schools, home schools and other local organizations that provide instructional services in mathematics; (5) of recipients of the MatheLite Project's e-Newletter; and (6) of candidates for participation in the Project's Math Workshops and Fitness Clinic. Any volunteer might choose one or more of those categories.

Workshop planning: the Project is to test-pilot its clinically developed MatheLite movies, through its Adult-And-Child Math Workshops. Some of the needed workshop services are strictly for organizing, managing, and executing special events. Additional Workshop services are needed from persons experienced in teaching high school or college mathematics.

Project staff services: the Project's "staff work" consists of supportive services: for the Advisory Council, for Project administration and communications, for the Fitness Clinic and Workshops, and for development of the movies. Much of that work (especially the "office" work) can be "outsourced" to homes or elsewhere ... secretarial, clerical, correspondence, publicity, editing, web-searching, etc. Team up with friends to have regularly scheduled MatheLite "office parties".

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*Pre-view videos are Activity Guide drafts that have been satisfactorily test-piloted, but have not yet been professionally re-filmed for city-wide circulation to the public. The pre-view versions will be readied weeks or months before the public version is circulated.