2020: During Covid 19

Colvid 19 has and will continue to change how we normally do our work.

Annual Clothing Sale: This year we had planned to give the proceeds of our annual clothing sale, that follows the Fashion Show, to the Primary and Secondary School Parent Associations. Instead, early in the pandemic we  cancelled the sale for fear of too many people and too much touching. 

Annual Clothing Sale 2019 

Schools Closed on March 15, 2020. Grades are normally collected in March, tallied and sent out to sponsors in April .  This year the schools closed on with no guarantee of when they will open.  

Board meetings are being held via Google Duo which actually has turned out to be effective and efficient.. we may just continue doing so after the pandemic..at least for some of the meetings. 

Sponsors wrote concerned about their student (s) and families.  So we launched the Apoyo Covid19 Relief Project. 

To date we have handed out envelopes of money to 100 families representing 113 students from grade 4- 12 plus 10 university students, and 1 grad who is now a teacher, for a total of 179,860 pesos. 

• 129,795 pesos from sponsors 
•    21,171 pesos from the program  
•    28,894 from donors. Thank you Jennifer Moore, Roger Higgins, Laurie Tinkey, John Andrew, Sonya Damon, Dennis Malone, Cheri Patron.  

In addition, the program covered the paypal fees of 6083 pesos to ensure the sponsors´ total donation went to their students. 

Giving money to the families  will also help the local stores in town. 

We needed several containers to ensure the 6 ft. of social distancing and ease of finding the named envelopes.. The bread tins worked perfectly so here they are: " Full of Dough"......money and paperwork for parent signatures.. 

Ligia, our administrative officer, did an amazing job calling every family giving parents times to come to best ensure social distancing.                                                                                               

Volunteer Ileana asked for the student´s name and directed the mom to either Ligia, Maxine or Roxane... all located 6 ft.. apart with masks on and hand sanitizer close by!

It will continue to be a difficult time for families in the village but hopefully our joint concern and actions will bring them some comfort knowing they are being cared about. 

Our Program contributed 10,000 pesos to the Chuburna/Chelem Food Bank targeting the funds to those families most in need in Chuburnà Puerto. These are funds allocated from the profit of the last year´s Fashion Show.

What´s happening for the education of the students?

Teachers connected with students via Facebook and Television... Course outlines were provided but of course it depends on how much parents can spend on data on their phones... if their television reception is good... and if a particular teacher has the personal technology to make this happen for her/his class.

There was speculation that the students may start school in July and continue thru.... and that high school graduates will graduate but without the ceremony they so look forward to.

Given that the students might have returned to school in July, work continued at the primary school to enlarge the two classrooms using 130,000 pesos of money we have allocated from the profits of the last three Fashion Shows.  

All the building materials were delivered pre-covid virus. The two workers were José and his son-in-law René who live in the same house in Chuburná.. So they went from home to the school and back wearing masks as is the law now. José joked that they are further apart working than if they were at home. Here is brief look at the work from beginning to end.

New outside wall before the blue painted old wall is demolished 

An initial 23 sq.meters for 22 students and a teacher.   The students literally had to crawl over chairs and tables to get to their seats. The new space will be 40 square meters.

The second classroom was just as small.

What´s happening to ensure families have food?

Chuburná/Chelem Food Bank delivered bags of food to Chuburná Comisario 

Progreso Municipality delivers bags of chicken house to house ... Here the Mayor is delivering too 

Randy & Jennifer from Yucatán Snook, Ruth and Chris from Yucatán Cenote donate 1000 masks to Chuburná Puerto 

With help from the Federal and State Governments the Municipal Government handed out over 130,000 bags of food house to house in the municipality including Chuburná Puerto.

The government also handed out money to senior citizens and licensed fishermen.

Cuidad Maderas, a local development company, has pledged 3000 bags of food to those with disabilities, seniors and single parents.

 Several local individuals are collecting and distributing food to families in Chuburná Puerto. 

Several apoyo sponsors continue to support their families in a variety of ways, including ongoing payments via PayPal which we make sure the student & family receive.

Additional donations to the program during this time were used towards  improvements to the 2 Primary School classrooms .. repair and maintenance of two air conditioners...of cubbies and shelving. 



There are many angels at work!