Vecinos

In 2008, I took a trip to visit a friend who was volunteering in Nicaragua. He suggested I raise some funds to get school supplies for the kids at a little country school where he used to volunteer as a college student. I brought $620, graciously donated by friends and members of the Rotary Club to which I belong. For that, we were able to get all the supplies the kids, mostly farmers' kids, needed, as well as as the supplies the teachers needed for a whole year. We sprung for a piñata. So we built a soccer field. Money goes a long way in Nicaragua. Without that support, some of those kids wouldn't have finished the school year. Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the world, and one of the key reasons is that most kids don't achieve a 6th grade education. Even a 6th grade education can make the difference between a person who can do the basic math required to run a home business and one who has to work at poverty wage. I was so blown away by how much you could do with just a little money in Nicaragua, I formed a non-profit initiative as part of my friend's larger 501c3. We call it "Vecinos," which means "Neighbors," and I set out to raise funds each year to support primary school education. Each February, which is the start of the Nicaraguan school year, we sponsor the school supplies of all the kids in each of the Telica school district's four poorest schools, and then do what repairs we can afford. So far, we've re-roofed a school that had been rendered useless by a hurricane, built several soccer fields, put doors and windows on an unused building to make an additional classroom at a school, built a security fence around another school that was routinely burglarized, and repaired a lot of unusable desks and chalkboards. We've also provided school supplies for hundreds of kids that otherwise might not have been able to attend classes. We now have a network of volunteers and supporters in Nicaragua, and take several volunteers to Nicaragua each year as well, often high school students. I'm really proud of what we've accomplished. I hope we can accomplish more, together.