Hearing of this the Sunrise Rotary Club of Medicine Hat decided to have a Mexican Fiesta/silent auction.   Nearly 300 people attended with the intention of helping these teachers.  At the end of the night nearly $12,500 was raised.  One guest made a personal donation of $2000.

Along with the generous donation of $2510.00 from the Eagle Butte high school in Dunmore Alberta this means almost  $15,000.00 has been raised to help build these teachers a house.

The local Mexican government will match these funds and the local community will help with the project.

PRETTY AMAZING

It was a wonderful celebration, complete with entertainment from the children, a wonderful meal, and speeches from dignitaries.

They have a broken down van that they use to transport craft supplies, books etc, for the kids and all they ask for is donations so they can buy more supplies.  Recently they were broken into  and all they supplies were taken.  We could not help them enough and hope to assit them in the future.  I just received an email from Sergio and now they are going into outlying communities and helping out.  Pretty Amazing.

The rest of the money raised by the Sunrise Rotary Club(an additional $2500.00) will go towards purchasing all the school supplies for some 30 schools next year (guess the tequila sampling bar was a good idea after all )

Here are photos of Randy and Caroline Van Dean, members of the Sunrise Rotary Club, pitching in at the construction site.

WAY TO GO EVERYONE!  The children and teachers of Pedro Moreno Thank Everyone involved.

Here are the amazing students of Medicine Hat:

The Sunrise and Pace Rotary Clubs from Medicine Hat Alberta donated funds so this school could be built with matching funds from the local government.

That is about it until next year..

Bob signing out for 2010

More school supplies were needed this year than ever before as the federal government had cut all funding but we were still able to help over 500 students get their needed materials as well as assist 2 special needs centers.The interesting thing this year was that teachers were asking for more alternative teaching tools,exercise equipment and books and more books..

The local government in Cabo Correntes that is still reeling from federal funding cuts would like to go ahead with us on  three projects this year if at all possible: an additional classroom in Las Juntas Y Veranos where presently 120 students are in 3 classrooms; Villa del Mar primary where 18 students from grade 1 to 3 are being taught outside; and a new school in Pedro Moreno where there presently is no school for 25 students. These are all growing communities and they see the importance of  good education for their children and would like to assist with the building.

There is a huge push in this area for reading as well as learning english and once again to the rescue came Libros For Learning headed by my good friend Gord Barron. This year they were able to set up 8 more libraries in rural schools donating  over 1000 educational books to this great cause. The donated van was again a great help in assisting with this project.

There was also time for play and even thou I can not swim my girlfriend Allison got me hooked on surfing, next year I will probably be the only surfer with a life jacket on.

MUCHAS GRACIAS; MUY AMABLE To all those good friends that helped to make this happen.

Wishing you all a  Magical 2011

Bob

Friends,

I wanted to report back to everyone who has supported Libros for Learning. It has been a wonderful year for the project and for the kids in Cabo Corrientes.

Four of us spent Thanksgiving week in Cabo Corrientes delivering books and meeting teachers. We delivered 8 libraries to primary school classrooms. Each of the libraries had 125 – 150 books that spanned difficulty levels from first grade to sixth grade. The books each had a library card in a pocket glued into the back cover. We also bought bookshelves this year, because most classrooms lack storage space for new books.  At each stop, we explained how to check out the books from the teacher and how to take good care of books. We stayed at each school for a few hours. We sat with the kids and did partner reading and group read aloud. Read aloud provides such positive enthusiasm for reading. It would be great for the  teachers to spend a little time with read-aloud every day.

We checked on some of the libraries we delivered in the past. The results are encouraging. The kids continue to read them at home and return them to the schools. We will look for the biggest results in 2-3 years among the kids who have had books available to them through their entire schooling. We expect that they will be better readers and more likely to continue their education through 12^th grade.

We also decided to spend time with middle and high school teachers (those schools are called “secundario” and “preparatorio”). In particular, we spent time talking about the new English curriculum in Mexico. As of 2008, English language education is part of the curriculum starting in fifth grade. The government has developed an interactive computer-based curriculum that teaches all levels. The biggest challenges for the teachers are first, that they themselves don’t know English, so they cannot serve as experts; the second is that there is no written material to support the computer lessons. They asked for English language books for the students to read n order to practice.  As a result of these conversations, we have decided to expand the work of Libros for Learning to include English language books for the middle and high schools. We will be very selective about what we provide – the books will have to be at a simple level – 2^nd – 4^thgrade is probably ideal. They must also be engaging and visual. If the themes are too young, they kids will not be interested. I have begun scouting out books that may work for these libraries. If you have thoughts about this, please let me know.

We are trying to set up some “Epal” relationships between high school students here and in Mexico. Two principals in schools down there are very interested. They have the internet capability in the schools and are excited to get started. Spanish teachers in my county are going to try to create that.

The year was a financial success. We raised about $7000 and spent it all on the project. As always, we spent no money on salaries or office space. The labor for organizing and labeling the books was all donated, mostly by schoolkids here in North and South Carolina. Special thanks to Mike Leonard of “Reading is Power.” Mike orders the books and does all the spreadsheet work for Libros for Learning along with continuing his own project.

We had support this year from two Rotary Clubs in North Carolina and are working to expand that relationship in 2011. We also got help from many classrooms who adopted Libros for Learning as their class service projects. Some classes raised money, some bought books, and many of them made bookmarks to accompany the books. In visiting with those classes, we were able to teach them about Mexico and about the challenges their friends in Mexican schools face.

Our goal for 2011 is to deliver 20 new libraries to primary schools and to provide English language libraries to two middle and high schools.

Enough information. If you want to learn more, go to the website, www.librosforlearning.com

Photos from the recent trip are in a Picasa album http://picasaweb.google.com/gbaron1950/LibrosForLearning201002#

Thanks for everything,

Glenn Baron

The project got its start when Comox Valley Dodge donated a mini-van to the Rotary Club of Strathcona-Sunrise.   Mike Finneron Jr. at Speed Pro Signs donated the Rotary logo and Canadian flag decals on each side.  With the help of funds to cover travel costs donated by the Rotary Club of Cumberland Centennial, it will be driven to Cabo Correntes, Mexico, a rural area 4 hours drive south of Puerta Vallarta.

Over 25 sewing machines were collected, one brand new in an unopened box, along with boxes of sewing notions and yards of fabric. In fact, the response was so great that more was collected then the van can hold. Rotary is looking into other options to transport the excess.

The supplies will be enthusiastically welcomed by the ‘Bag Ladies of Banderas Bay’. These enterprising women live near the city dump and utilize the recyclable resources discarded on their doorstep. They started making handbags from newspaper. They now make many styles of bags, from padded laptop computer bags to small pouch-bags with shoulder straps. ‘Bag Ladies’ enables women to earn an income as well as gain business experience and skills they would not normally be able to obtain as stay-at-home moms. By having their own money in their pockets, these women learn to be more independent, to gain the confidence and motivation to fight for a better life.

Taking turns at the wheel enroute to Mexico will be Bob Johnson and local Rotarian Terry Neilson. Bob is a local painter who has been making trips to this region of Mexico for 8 years. He has established many contacts in the area and has been helping to build schools and housing for teachers and to bring school supplies into the impoverished rural area.  The van will be put to use in support of his numerous projects in the area.   Everyone involved was thrilled at the amount of supplies collected. As Bob aptly put it:  “They won’t believe it when they see all that stuff in the van!”

As they say in Mexico, “Millones de gracias Comox Valley”.