Provide electricity to 500 students in Belize

Dear Donors,

I have just returned from a marvelous site visit to Holy Cross Anglican School in San Mateo Belize, where we have two solar arrays installed on rooftops. The visit was accompanied by a volunteer team of numerous individuals primarily working on school maintenance projects in anticipation of ground breaking on our new multipurpose community center and storm shelter. The visit underscored the fragility of our location, with higher than normal tides making for standing water in many areas of the campus. Recalling that all of the school is built on filled land in a salt-water-swamp marsh, it is not surprising that this can occur especially during periods of strong onshore winds. In addition, land-filled areas can tend to subside over time and thus we discovered we will need to backfill some of the grounds especially in areas where the new multipurpose building is to be located. We are very happy to report that most of the funds have been raised for this new building and that it will provide a much needed safe space for the community of San Mateo, also located on the same land-filled tidal swamp. It is always amazing to me that on a "tourist island," most of the indigenous people live in substandard housing and in fact San Mateo still remains the least developed location on the island. We find ourselves, however, grateful that the there is so much diversity in San Mateo including many Garifuna, a cultural group in diaspora along the coastlines of central and south America.

Our plan is to provide solar to the entire new multipurpose building. We are not ready quite yet to obtain quotes for this next phase of the project, but we know that it will require us to raise substantial funds. The need for the school and those it serves to become self-reliant is a crucial part of the planning behind the new building, because it will also provide a source of income to help fund the school, through community initiatives and school functions. To do this, it will need to be as fully green as possible, benefitting from not only our new rain-water collection cistern/system but the SRE that will populate the roof. And of course, this will also help as much as possible in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I have enclosed a few pictures with captions from our recent site visit. And, I apologize for not getting personal thank you notes out to all of you donors, but I and our Foundation thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continuing support. Please spread the word about this upcoming next solar project phase and perhaps draw in some additional supporters that would have an interest in becoming a part of what is already a very successful endeavor.

Sincerely,

John McHenry, Project Leader.