80 + 1 happy kids school year 2024 - 2025
It is now early September 2024. Schools in the Dominican Republic began on Aug. 26. These were tough summer months. High feeling temperatures, high humidity and a crowded store. But we are very proud of ourselves but even more proud of all our sponsors.
You made it possible for us to provide 80 children with a full school uniform (long pants, polo shirts, leather shoes, belt), sports uniform (sweatpants, t-shirt, sneakers) underwear, socks, backpack, notebooks, pens, pencils, sharpener, ruler, paste, waxco, crayons/pens.
Alejandro
In addition, 1 of "our" children received a scholarship to a private school in Puerto Plata. Alejandro is now 12 years old and on Aug. 26 started his 1e year in high school, but more on that in a future blog.
The preparation
In April the first sponsor letters to our regular sponsors went out the door. We were then able to give a presentation at the Rotary Club in Elsloo as well as at the Aktie voor Aktie foundation in Utrecht. From both the Rotary Club and Aktie voor Aktie we received a very nice contribution for the school uniforms.
Meanwhile, we also started posting on social media.
Last year we were able to help 72 children, the bar is high!
Purchases
It is now July 17 and we have received word from Tienda Jimenez that everything is in. The uniform has changed, where until last year it was khaki pants with a yellow polo, this year it is a light blue polo with dark blue pants. So all children must get a completely new uniform and nothing can be taken over from older siblings/neighbors.
Each child comes to the store personally with a parent/guardian, so we can be sure they get the right items and the money is not used for something else.
In early August, the donation money ran out, but we still have some children on our list that we would really like to help. An appeal or Facebook will help raise the money for these last children as well.
Grateful that with the help of many we were able to conclude this project with 81 happy children. After countless thanks and hugs, children returned home with beaming eyes and big smiles with their goodies. Knowing that they can attend school in the coming school year. A few very tiring days for us, but the happiness of these 81 children was more than worth tiredness, backache and headache.
During 1 of these days we made video recordings of Winifer for a promotional video.
A full report on the 2024-2025 school project can be found at our blog page.
We want to thank all the sponsors immensely. You made this possible!
