Campaign milestones: 34 Million Friends of UNFPA

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34 Million Friends

Campaign Milestones

2004
August	Donations to 34 Million Friends pass $2 million mark
July	Bush Administration withholds funds from UNFPA for the third year in a row ABC News profiles Jane and Lois
May	Jane travels to Brussels to launch Friends in the European Union.
2003
December	Ms. Magazine salutes Jane and Lois among “50 Women Who Made a Difference” Jane and Lois are honoured by WeNews among “Seven Who Stretch their Reach Across Cultures
November	O, The Oprah Magazine, features 34 Million Friends
September	US religious leaders visiting China see no UN link to forced abortions
May	Campaign reaches $1 million mark, supported by more than 100,000 people.
February	Jane Roberts travels to Senegal and Mali and Lois Abraham travels to Nicaragua to see the work of UNFPA first hand. While visiting a youth centre in Bamako, Mali, where sports and a cyber-café are combined with a health clinic, Jane learns that the campaign has surpassed $500,000.
January	Campaign reaches Australia and columnist Pamela Bone encourages support: "…all women's rights are dependent on that most fundamental right of all: the right to control their fertility." (The Age, 17 January)
2002
December	Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman features the campaign (Boston Globe, 22 December) and contributions soar to between 1,000–2,000 letters per day in January and February.
Oct-Nov	Letters sent to every chapter of the League of Women Voters and to every Women’s Studies department in the United States. Emails circulated by members of the Audubon Society, People for the American Way and the WorldWatch Institute.
October	Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins urges readers to support campaign (Creators Syndicate, 22 October); contributions jump from 100 to 500 letters per day by end of November. Campaign receives unanimous endorsement of the National Council of Women’s Organizations.
September	First foreign donation received: Canadian $18,000.
August	Jane Roberts sends a letter to the Sun newspaper in San Bernardino, CA, asking that, “as an exercise in outraged democracy, would 34 million Americans please send $1 each? This would right a terrible wrong”. Lois Abraham independently emails 40 friends asking them to donate one dollar to UNFPA and to tell ten more friends about the impact of the U.S. funding cut on women’s lives and the need to take immediate action. UNFPA begins to receive donations (12 August), including a check for $25,000 from an anonymous donor in Maine. Best-selling American author Barbara Kingsolver sends a dollar.