April Newsletter
Adoption
We had a good response. There were 40 surgeries completed. Right now
money has come in to cover 30 of them. There has been a lot of groups that are
raising money and haven't sent it in yet. If you are a group or an individual who has contacted me about sending some money, please do so as
soon as possible. I do understand that there is still some money raising going on. It would be nice to have all the money in as early as
possible because Angie had to take some money from general expenses to cover some of
the surgeries. More about the general expenses later.
It is always interesting to hear how the money was raised. A middle school
in Canada put on a play and the proceeds went to the surgeries. At the
high school where I work several students took it on as a project and challenged
all 5th period classes to give some money. They than went to the classes
on
a Thurs and Fri. to gather money. They got close to $800.00. I am
really proud of them . If your group did a special money raising project let me know and I will share it with the others.
There are before pictures of some of the children on the site at www.sharingthedream.org
Angie sent me some photos of the children. We got her a digital camera
last year so it will be nice to share photos. If any of you go to Casa
Guatemala and want to share some of your pictures just send them via e-mail or regular
mail and I will post them. Yesterday my friend Kevin went down, he will be
there for a month, there is also a group from Canada that should be there now too. Mark said he would get some pictures. So... the photos are
enclosed. The photos are all around the new boys dormitory. Isn't it
wonderful. It stands where the old Casa Angie stood. A big thank you to
the Canadian benefactor who supplied the finances for that and a few of the
other buildings.
(Click each picture for full size view.)
I received a note from Angie the other day. Payments were due for the employees, food, etc. They were running short of funds because of the
surgeries so....if anyone has any extra cash. That leads right into the
next part of the letter.
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"Sharing the Dream" is a project that was started by several of us
about 5 years ago to walk with the people of Guatemala and to help out the orphanage. All of us are volunteers. We work with artisan cooperatives in
Guatemala on products and quality. We have individuals and groups sell the
products at churches, organizations, community functions, and at house parties. All of the profit go back to Guatemala. Most of the money goes to
Casa Guatemala although each cooperative we work gets some project money to do something in the community. I hear from a lot of you that would
like to help Casa Guatemala, but don't have the finances right now. This
would be a way to contribute that takes time and not much money. The crafts are
beautiful and sell themselves. We send you a box of crafts that are priced
and ready to go, you sell them and than send the money back and any crafts you don't sell. You can designate that you want the profits from your sale
to go to Casa Guatemala. Over the past 2 years we have given Casa
Guatemala over $45,000.00 through the sales. This not only helps Casa Guatemala but
buying the crafts fair trade helps the artisans immensely. You can see pictures of the crafts on
www.sharingthedream.org.
If you are interested in doing this you can contact me. This would just be available for people
living in the United States.
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Casa Guatemala has many children but most are not adoptable. It usually takes many years to get a child through the court system and available.
Periodically we have older children that need a home. These children are difficult to place because of their age. We need to find good homes for
these children. The process is called Independent International Adoption. The families adopting must go through the paperwork and process that they
would go through with an agency. If you know of wonderful families who would like to bring one of these children or a sibling group into their home
please have them contact me. We have a web site with pictures of the children at
www.sdweb.net/adoption/
Peter and Rachel from England just sent me a wonderful update letter and pictures. I will send it in a day or two. It is quite lengthy so I
didn't want to include it with this letter. People who have volunteered at Casa
Guatemala will enjoy it because it is quite descriptive.
In the United States Tax-deductible contributions can be sent to
Friends of Guatemalan Children, Inc.
%Sandra Seymour
1716 Anthony Dr.
St. Joseph, Mich. 490855