| Joaquin's Birthday
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Happy Birthday Joaquin | Joaquin, my son and inspiration had his 32nd birthday May 1, 2010. A big thank you to all of you who attended and to the band Broken English. The party was held at the old Davenport Cash Store, (now the Roadhouse) on the same day that a Cinco de Mayo Celebration was a block away at the church. After lunch, the party headed over to the church where Broken English sang "Happy Birthday" to Joaquin followed by their usual hot salsa!! Thank you to everyone who made this day so special for him!!
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| Peru, Tanzania, Update
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Centro de Rehabilitacion "Joaquin" | The Project in Chincha Baja Peru is continueing to grow with 38 clients coming in for services on a regular basis. We are continuing our support to them at a $100. per month for supplies and incidentals. The mayor has paid all the therapists since February and I look forward to a visit this summer. During that time I will also be exploring the area of Piura in the north of Peru for a future project.
We have also continued the lunch program we started one year ago at our Tanzania school site. I am happy to say that by providing a lunch to these 56 students, their tests scores have risen and the teacher has reported that children who were not playing previously in the schoolyard are now joining in. His e-mail stated that he now believes that much of their disability had been caused from malnutrition. When we started this program the government agreed to extend the school day which also afforded the parents more time to remain working before they returned for their children. Family incomes have risen and they now believe that they can pay for half of the program themselves. The auditorium/community center that we built will furnish another 15%through rental income per month. We will be able to reduce our contribution to 35% or $84. per month by June and look forward to the government contributing this portion in the near future.
To all of you who have donated throughout the year, it was a mere $12.00 a day that fed these 56 children and will be a little under $3.00 a day now to supplement this program. You have had an incredible impact on 56 families and done so much with so little. Thank you. |
| What's in the works and tune in to channel 27, 8:30 Wednesday or 2:30 Sunday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Santa Cruz is in the works!! Recent budget cuts have day programs for persons with disabilities without classes from Adult Services that they used to receive. These included ESL, Computor classes and a Tai Chi class. Cabrillo College cut their summer swim and adaptive weight training program this year and the Regional Center will not be paying for any campers to attend camp this summner. Little is left but the skeleton in Santa Cruz Day Programs for young adults. Alice Paipa, a young graduate from the Monterey Institute and myself are working on some grant proposals to come into these program sites and begin a music project using Latin Rhythms and percussion instruments. Our Colombia Project recording was the inspiration for this. PLEASE tune in to COMMUNITY TV CHANNEL 27 ON WEDNESDAY MAY 12, 8:30 PM, OR MAY 16, SUNDAY AT 2:30. Myself and Rose Brindley were interviewed by Community TV in a half hour show where we discuss this project and show a 10 minute clip of the Colombia Music Group "Chirimia." Last but not least: If you are a member of a service or community group, please consider asking them to invite me to speak. Also, you can do much for our work by going to Goodsearch on your computer, downloading their toolbar for Building for Generations and using Goodsearch in place of Google. There also is a feature called Goodshop where a portion purchased from any of these vendors goes to our project. Make your next plane reservations online through them and it will help us out greatly. P.S. This was my first experiment using this template and it took a considerable amount of time. My presentations in the future should go more smoothly. Thanks for your patience, I'm not actually sure what it will look like when it goes out yet. |
