Central American Relief Efforts

2013 Prize Winners

2013 Prize Winners

Last week, CARE hosted its fifth annual Golf & Cocktail Fundraiser at Bent Creek Country Club.

The first-place foursome was named sponsor of a Honduran dentist who travels to rural schools to provide dental hygiene clinics and dental care for children who otherwise lack access to dental care.

Second-place team members were named sponsors of two levels of weekly English classes for Honduran children.

Congratulations to our winning teams and thank you to everyone who participated and to our 2013 Hole Sponsors for making this event a success!

We look forward to seeing you again in 2014!

Student Members of Penn Manor's Young Humanitarian League Contribute to CARE's La Laguna School Project

Student members of Penn Manor High School’s Young Humanitarian League presented CARE with a $2000 contribution to complete the La Laguna School building project .

Previously, the 40 children in La Laguna held classes on the ground outside or walked an hour to get to the nearest school. Members of the local community have all pitched in to help with the project in various ways; the school walls were completed in March, the roof went up in April, and the flooring will be laid this month.

The roofing at the new school was completed this spring.

Penn Manor also sent desks to Honduras to furnish the school and our group of Dental Hygienists that traveled to Honduras with us in February donated school supplies to the community to use in its new facility. Our supporters have helped make the dream of education become a reality for the families of the La Laguna community.  We look forward to seeing the project completed and in use in the upcoming months. Sending thanks to YHL and to all those who have made this project possible!

Sending out a huge THANK YOU to our volunteers who spent the morning sorting supplies that will be shipped to Honduras!

CARE hosts monthly sorts to ensure that we make the most efficient use of our shipping container space. The supplies will be delivered to Honduras in the upcoming months.

A group from Franklin and Marshall College spent spring break with CARE through F&M’s Ware Institute for Civic Engagement. Students held medical clinics in El Guayabo, San Juan Bosco, and La Laguna de Marilica to provide healthcare services to 1366 patients over the three days. F&M’s volunteers also took a day to observe at the Choluteca Hospital and visit a nearby orphanage where CARE has allocated meals from our food project with Kids Against Hunger. Thanks to F&M, the Ware Institute, and to all of our student volunteers for your support and service!

A group of 24 students from Vanderbilt University spent their spring break holding medical clinics in southern Honduras. The group held six medical clinics and worked with local doctors, nurses, dentists, and ophthalmologists to provide medical services to a total of 2698 residents of the communities of El Jicaro, Tular, Cacautare, Concepción de María, El Tablado, and Amapala. The group also spent a day touring the facilities of the Choluteca Hospital, where they shadowed doctors and completed a paint project. A big thanks goes out to all of our volunteers for making the week a great success and to David Johnson for serving as group leader!

In January, CARE received a shipping container of vitamin-fortified rice-soy casserole from Kids Against Hunger, a US-based humanitarian food aid organization that aims to eradicate world hunger. Our team members in Honduras have been busy distributing the food packages to nearly 30 schools in Southern Honduras that face particularly high rates of malnutrition. With this container, we will be delivering shipments of food to these schools every few months to make sure every student has a balanced meal daily.

Typically, parents will either send a snack to school with students or the parents will take turns preparing a meal for the students at the school. This becomes especially difficult in areas where poverty is high and where families are dependent on agricultural-based work.

As the mayor of one collaborating town explained,

This time of year, we see a lot of kids struggling in school. The families in this community are very poor to start out with, but because we are in the dry season, many parents are out of work entirely. If the kids are lucky, they may have a tortilla to eat during the day, but that’s it. The rates of malnutrition are high, and many kids are anemic.

The dry food comes packaged with rice, soy, chicken flavoring, and vegetables and requires nothing more than a pot of boiling water to prepare. 15-20 minutes later, lunch is served! In all of our taste tests, the kids have loved the food, and the teachers and leaders of parent associations are getting creative with how they use the pre-made packages. Beneficiaries have been making soup, tamales, tacos, and much more!

A group of volunteers led by Carol Martin held five days of dental clinics in February. The volunteers provided cleaning and fluoride treatment to over 1400 students, taught kids how to properly brush their teeth, and worked with a local dentist to provide extractions as necessary. The group also donated medical supplies to the Choluteca Hospital; a variety of school supplies and classroom materials to 19 under-funded area schools; and toys, toothpaste, and pencils to each of the children who participated in the clinic. The group visited schools in the communities of Las Marias, El Chapparal, San Antonio de Padua, San Isidro, and El Jicaro.

The 40-some kids who live in La Laguna, a poor community outside of San Antonio de Padua, faced an hour-long trek up a hilly, rocky, nearly impassable road to get to the nearest school. Check out the progress on CARE’s school project in La Laguna!

Last year, CARE began fundraising to build a school for the kids in La Laguna. Construction started in November. We are making progress but still need your support to complete the project! Don Cristobal, the community member supervising the project , described the progress:

“Education for the kids in our community has been a big struggle. They used to have to walk to the school in San Antonio Padua, and for a long time we’ve been fighting to have a school for them here in our own community. For a while we tried to hold classes on the ground in open spaces in the community here, but we we were still lacking classrooms.

“As a community, we are so thankful that this project has begun. We can have our kids closer, in our own community, rather than sending them all the way town to San Antonio. It would take the kids nearly an hour to walk there. There are 23 families that live here in this community and about 40 kids who will attend this school when it is complete. Before we were asking for help from politicians, mayors, but no one had the funds to help us until [CARE] helped us begin the project.

“The work here so far has been a great success, we will soon have our own school building. The materials for the school are brought from Tegucigalpa to San Antonio and the members of the community of La Laguna carry the building materials up the road to La Laguna and are helping to build the school. The members of the community are making a sacrifice to help with this project too, everyone is helping and supporting this project. We still have a lot of work to do, but everyone in our community is ready to help.”

A group from Purdue University visited Honduras in December, holding three days of medical clinics in the communities of Chapparal, San Antonio Flores, El Espinal, San Isidro, and San Lorenzo. The group also spent a day getting to know their way around the Choluteca Hospital and spent an afternoon visiting children at an orphanage.