Good News in Honduras!
Hi all blog followers! Good news!
If you scroll down the past entries, you will see that on last January’s mission trip to Honduras, we visited a school at San Nicolas which was in need of a roof. Comox Rotarian, Brian Mather, as mentor of the Isfeld High School’s Interact Club in Comox was excited to propose to the Interact Club that they take this project on, backed up by the Rotary Club of Comox. The students eagerly agreed to get at it and raise the money. What an enthusiastic and ambitious group of young people!
The Rotary Club applied for a District Grant of $3500 USD for the $10,000 USD project and this summer was informed that its application had been approved! The Mid Island Group of Rotary Clubs generously granted $1,000. So now the race is on to raise the rest of the money and get that roof replaced, with the help of the Rotary Club of Comayagua in Honduras and the people of San Nicolas who will do the work, supervised by the engineer.
To let these high school students speak for themselves, below is a letter written by the President of the Mark R Isfeld High School Interact Club, Honduras. I’ll think you’ll be impressed by her words. Kalissa and the other members of the Interact Club are so deserving of our club’s mentorship and support as they learn the value and the joy of helping others.
Below are some pictures; the last one shows the way it will look when the roof is replaced; this has been done on one of the other classrooms, but the village didn’t have enough resources to complete the whole school.
For those of you who are supporters – thank you! If you’d like to
send your encouragement, contact information is below. We’re all helping these budding Rotarians Raise the Roof.
Dear Interactors and Supporters,
My name is Kalyssa Heinrich and I am one of the co-presidents of Mark R. Isfeld’s Interact club in Courtenay, BC, Canada. We currently have a massive project on the go and we are asking for your help! We need to raise a huge amount of money in a short amount of time and any help would be greatly appreciated.
Last year when we were throwing around ideas for a club project a few suggestions morphed into the idea to build a school for children who don’t have access to education. A group of Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Comox travelled down to Honduras last year and visited a school in San Nicolas that was in desperate need of repairs. Our original idea to build a school wasn’t obtainable but repairing this school’s roof was. The village children attend this school and we plan on helping each and every one of them.
The roof that currently exists is literally falling apart. It has mould and whenever it rains, water leaks inside the classrooms. The roof is dangerous and the conditions don’t create a good learning environment for the children. We plan on doing something about it! My Interact club has raised just over 5 000 USD over the past few months, half of the funds required to succeed in this project. We have received grants from District 5020 and the Mid Island Group of Rotary clubs, here on Vancouver Island thanks to the support of the Rotary Club of Comox. We are in contact with other Interact and Rotary clubs from around the globe to help make our project a reality and take action in helping these kids.
The thing is, we need your help. We must raise the whole 10 000USD by the end of December. The month of January and the first two weeks of February are when the children in San Nicolas have time off from school. We want for them to have a safe roof this school year. Part of the criteria in the generous grant from District 5020 is that the roof needs to be completed and paid for by the end of May 2016. To reach this goal we need help. We can’t do this on our own. For the past six years we have been a supporter of the Tegucigalpa Market Kids Program in Honduras. Last year alone we were able to send 23 kids to school who otherwise wouldn’t have received an education. But this isn’t enough. By building this roof we will ensure that even more students will be able to go to school safely this year and for many more children in years to come.
We hope to build strong connections for the future. Part of Interact is learning and staying in contact with other clubs and we would love to learn about your interests and projects. A few of our members have initiated a United Interact within the high schools in our town and we’ve had great results sharing ideas. If you ever need help in one of your own endeavours we would love to be able to participate.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
Kalissa Heinrich, Co-president
Alyssa Erikson, Co-president & Project Leader (kenkerik@shaw.ca)
Brian Mather, Rotary Mentor (b.mather@shaw.ca – 1-250-897-8220
