April Newsletter

April Newsletter
March has been a month full of holidays, fundraising, planning, and setting goals for the future. Semana Santa fell in March this year. Semana Santa is the week leading up to Easter and is the biggest holiday of the year in Nicaragua. School was out for a week as many people went to the beach and/or participated in innumerable street processions. Semana Santa is a beautiful week where the churches are decorated with flowers and fruit, fireworks are constantly going off, and there are frequent parades in the streets.

March was a great month for us for fundraising. We are very thankful by the generosity of our donors. Tracy Finch, co-founder, utilized a vacation to the states to do fundraising in Maryland and Virginia.

We are continuing to work with the Living Earth Institute on the water-tank/rain gutter project, and with the Ministry of Education on the school gardens project. Also, we are starting construction this month on remodeling the preschool at Anne Frank.

A Family in Need
Blanca is a single mother of 3 children; Alondra, Miguel, and Isidro. Recently, Blanca separated from the father of these children because of domestic violence. She now is struggling to get by. Blanca has no stable source of employment. She takes in washing and does odd jobs when she can find them. She is struggling to provide adequate food to her children and doesn’t have any extra money to provide them with school supplies, shoes, or medical care.

Blanca’s children have been enrolled with Proyecto Laguna for a year, but have not yet been sponsored.

Isidro is 7 years old and in the 2nd grade. He reports that his favorite food is bread and butter and he wants to be a lawyer when he grows up. Miguel is 8 years old and in 4th grade. He likes to play basketball and wants to be a doctor when he grows up. Alondra is a charming little preschooler who likes playing with dolls.

To help these children succeed in school and in life please sponsor one or all of them now. Sponsorship is just $100 a year per child and provides the child with all necessary school supplies, shoes and uniform, basic medical care, and provides didactic supplies to their classroom. To sponsor these children please contact us at info@proyectolaguna.com.

Goals
This month we worked with the parent groups at Ruiz Castillo and Anne Frank to set goals for this school year. The parent groups both set the goal of building a kitchen with an attached cafeteria.
Currently, one mother from each classroom cooks each day, on a rotating schedule. The mother picks up the dry rice, beans, and corn and the next day brings it to the class for lunch. This system is difficult and inefficient. The parents, who already have scarce resources, are responsible for providing wood to make a fire to cook and for paying to grind the corn. If a mother forgets to pick up the food, the children in that class don’t eat, and sometimes food gets picked up from the school but never makes it back. It is also hard to control food hygiene when the food is prepared off site.

With a school kitchen only three mothers a day, on a rotating schedule, would have to cook. Two would prepare rice, beans and cereal, and one would prepare tortillas. There would be less wood used because all of the food would be prepare in one large batch instead of several small batches. And a cafeteria would provide an eating space for the children to use where we could ensure there are always available plates, cups and silverware-currently some children do not eat lunch because they cannot afford to buy a plate to keep at school.

The parent groups are currently working on writing up a proposal soliciting donations for this project. The photo in this section is of the parents and school directors at Anne Frank who are applying for funding for a kitchen.

We estimate that the cost of building a kitchen is $3000 with $2500 extra for the attached cafeteria. If you are interested in donating toward this project please contact us. If you are interested in fundraising at your school, church, place of work, or other organization, for this project, please contact us, and remember all donations are tax deductible!!

Fundraising Success in March
“A Night for Nicaragua” charity event was a success. The Kiss Café in Baltimore, was gracious enough to donate the event space and cook delicious Latin/Caribbean food. Over $3000 was raised for Proyecto Laguna including 12 new child sponsorships.

On Easter Sunday, Tracy Finch, our co-founder, spoke at the Westminster Church in Richmond, Virginia. Tracy gave a presentation on our project; what we do, why we are here, and what the realities of life in Nicaragua are. Parishioners donated over $2000 including 18 new child sponsorships. The Parishioners reported they were touched by Tracy’s speech and that the pictures she showed helped make the stories real.

Last week we received a check from the Baraca Bible Class from Westminster for $1248! In an attached note they told us, “we especially liked the fact that you seem to have found the best solution to empowering people to help themselves.”

We would like to say Thank You to the Kiss Café, Sammy Williams at Westminster Church in Richmond, VA, and the Baraca Bible Class. We truly appreciate all of the support you have given us!

Pre-School Remodel
The pre-school building at Anne Frank is in a state of disrepair. The walls are crumbling, the wooden beams holding the tin roofing is rotting, the paint is chipping off, there are no lights or electric sockets in the classroom, and the room is dark and uninviting.
Next week we will start construction and remodel this classroom. We plan to replace the wooden roof beams with metal, replace the roof, replace the doors, expand the windows, connect electricity, and patch the walls. We also plan on adding an attached office that will be used by the directors of the school. Currently the directors have a very small room that is sectioned off from a classroom by a bookshelf. We will build an office that is attached to the preschool that has a storage room in the back to store the dry rice and beans for the school lunch and plenty of space for the directors to work.

We are very excited for this project and look forward to working with the parents of Anne Frank who are will be volunteering their labor for this project.

Thank you
Thank you to everyone who made donations this month. We depend on your donations to make a difference in the lives of the people of Diria.