New
Holiday Cards |
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This holiday season, consider making a
donation in someone else's name with the new Mayan Families Holiday
cards! There are six available for general or specific donations.
Just click here to browse the cards,
print out your favorite, write in your name and donation details,
and give it as a gift.
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Mayan
Families Blogs |
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Don't forget to check back at our new Mayan
Families blogs, the Elderly Care blog and the Family Aid blog, for more news and updates on
the families of Lake Atitlan. Onetime donations make great holiday
gifts and go a long way to help a family in
need!
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December 2010 Monthly
e-Newsletter
December-2010 |
Greetings!
Welcome to the December
newsletter! Scroll down to read about a special sponsored student,
our goal for the Tamale Basket drive, and our progress on a home
construction project. Thank you to all of our supporters, and have
a happy holiday!
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Successful
Scholars
Though
the school year is out, December has given us and our sponsored
students plenty of reasons to celebrate! First, we had our
pre-school graduations - an adorable event that (we hope!) marks
just the beginning of many years of study. (See the photos from
the Panajachel preschool graduation here.) And it's not just the
preschoolers - many of our older students became the first in
their families to graduate high school, and they couldn't have been
more excited! With a graduation rate in Solol� of only 7.9%, this
is a great accomplishment.
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Sandra |
While
Mayan Families is proud of each and every student, some are
especially close to our hearts - our employees! We employ a few
hardworking sponsored students who work during the week, then study
on evenings and weekends. One of these students is Sandra, who has
been with us ever since she graduated high school in 2006. Sandra
was one of Sharon's first students - she was around before the
number system even existed!
Thank
you to everyone who has sponsored a student - you are the ones who
make stories like Sandra's possible. There are still many students
looksing for sponsors -- read their stories on the Sponsor a Student
page.
Sandra
has actually been our sponsored student since she was 5yrs old,
before we started Mayan Families. She is the daughter of a single
mother,who speaks very little Spanish and earns her living making
tortillas.
Sandra didn't want her education to
stop at high school, and is now about halfway through earning her
degree in social work. She has a couple more years of study to go,
followed by a year of thesis research and a final exam before she
will graduate. When asked if she would continue at Mayan Families
after she graduated, she laughed and replied that she would never
abandon the work of Mayan Families! Sandra says she is passionate
about her studies and work because they give her the power to help
people, and to give them the opportunities they need to improve
themselves and their lives. Sandra is living proof of the power of
education to change lives, not just for her, but for the community
she works in everyday. We are very proud of Sandra's hard work, and
of the work that all our students put in this year!
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More Baskets Needed for
Holiday Tamale Drive
The
office has been gearing up for our big annual Holiday Tamale Basket
Drive, and preparations are in full swing! In December 2005, two of
our sponsored students went door to door hoping someone would give
them a tamale to eat. Though this is the traditional Guatemalan
Christmas feast, many cannot afford it, and so the Holiday Tamale
Basket Program was begun in 2006. The program has expanded a lot
since then, and last year was our most successful year yet - we
were able to give out about 1,600 baskets!
This
year has been a particularly hard one in Guatemala thanks to the
world economic downturn and a terrible rainy season that brought
mudslides, crop damage, and a frightening projected food shortage
for this winter. With so many impoverished families struggling just
to cover to basic necessities, there is little extra money for
holiday gifts or festivities. Unfortunately, we currently only
have enough to cover about 700 baskets, leaving us still 900 short
if we want to match our giving from last year.
Help us to meet our goal and feed
the 16,000 people that we did last year. One Tamale Basket costs
$35, and provides all the ingredients for a feast for up to ten
people. To make a donation, go to our Donate Now page, and enter in
your donation in the General box. In the Extra Notes
section, write "Holiday Tamale Basket." If you have a specific
family or student who you would like to donate the basket to,
include their student or family aid number in the Extra
Notes box. If you are making the donation in someone else's
name, you can choose a special card to print out for them from
our Holiday Cards post.
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New Home for a Big
Family
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Part of the Ibate
Family |
Mayan
Families is back on the home-building scene this December! If you
read last month's newsletter, you'll remember the building of
Caterina's house (read the full story here).
About a week ago, Mayan Families staff and volunteers broke ground
on another housing project, and it's a pretty ambitious
undertaking. It will house a family that spans three generations
and includes grandparents, three adult daughters, and their
children -- 19 people in all.
Many
of the Ibate children have been fortunate enough to receive student
sponsorships to stay enrolled in school. (We even received a visit
from a couple of their sponsors here in the Mayan Families office
last week!) But their landlord decided a couple of months ago to
turn their rented home into a garage for his mini-bus, and the
family is being forced out. With nowhere to go and no land to their
name, the Ibates feared they would end up on the street. But thanks
to the generosity of Mayan Families supporters, that wasn't the
case! With your donations, we raised enough money to start building
a block house large enough to shelter all the numerous members of
this family. Last week the Ibates went to see the construction
site, and their relief and excitement was clear. Read the Ibate's
full story and see photos of the construction here.
Thank you to everyone who made this
house possible!
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To
make a contribution please go to our website
http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateOnline
and
go the General Donation section to send a donation. If you would
like to nominate a special family or a sponsored student to receive
your basket or other items please send us their name or student
number by e-mail to Sharon@mayanfamilies.org
If
you would like to pay by check please send your donation made out
to Mayan Families to:
Mayan
Families
P.O.
Box 52
Claremont,
N.C. 28610
If
you would like to give this gift in Honor of someone special,
please send us an email at dwight@mayanfamilies.org
giving
us the details and we will put them on our IN HONOR OF web
page......to have an e-mail sent to the person you are honoring -
please send us their email address.
Thank
you for your support!
ABOUT
US:
Mayan
Families is a small non-profit group working in the Highlands
of
Guatemala.
We are a registered 501(c)(3) Non Profit Charity of the Internal
Revenue Code. .
Your
donation is tax deductible.
P.S.
Please help spread the word by forwarding this e-mail to
your community
or posting it on your personal blog, web page and your
social networks
such as Facebook, You Tube, MySpace, Twitter, Buzz, Hi5, Blogs and
any others that are
appropriate.
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Merry
Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Sincerely,
P.S.
Please forward this e-mail to anyone and everyone you
know.
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