Funding The Integral Heart School in 2022

Warmest Greetings from Guatemala,

I have to admit I am always nervous going into the GivingTuesday one-day match/fundraiser. Our team starts prepping in late October, and since we are completely crowdfunded (meaning on corporate or government grants), we start early reaching our to our monthly Sustaining Sponsors, to our annual bigger donors, and via social media, to get the new out as far and wide as possible.

And, again, this year, it worked!! And it worked really well!

We finished the day 12.5% over our goal and with the help of you, all 252 donors who gave on the day, we are glad to say that we are starting 2023 on a solid foundation of love and support who brought us $2,400 over our original goal with a total raised + match of $43,645 on the day. We also finished in 7th place overall of 1,100 participating projects!

With love and appreciation,

Mick Quinn & Debora Prieto
Co-founder, Integral Heart School, Antigua Guatemala. 


About us:
Integral Heart was founded in 2011 by Mick Quinn and Debora Prieto.

They had vacationed in Guatemala in 2009 and were drawn to its beauty but also felt compelled to respond directly to the potential they saw in the younger generations. They have lived year-round in Guatemala ever since.

The Integral Heart Family School is 100% crowdfunded. We currently have 225 individuals whose monthly and annual donations support our work. The core team of Sustaining Sponsors raises about one half of the total funds needed to operate our school and programs. The rest of the funding is raised in special events and in participation with our funding partner, GlobalGiving based in Washington D.C.

Education is the heart of our work. Our school is home to 65 children receiving classes in Spanish, English, Psychology, Human Rights, Homework Help, Art and serves 1,500 meals monthly.  Since 2011, our programs have delivered classes and support to over 1,200 students and their families in Guatemala. We also provide over a food basket to each of our 45 sponsored families.

Photo updates of our work:
We update our photo albums twice per month here: 
https://www.facebook.com/integralheartfamily

5-year Dream Plan: We are saving to buy/build a school which incorporates our existing educational programs and an animal rescue center. Imagine, One Child - One Animal :-)
If you would like to see our plans for this, click here :-)
https://www.integralheartfoundation.org/DreamPlan.pdf

Warmest greetings from Guatemala.

Before I continue the story of our humble beginning, we have some great news. In partnership with GlobalGiving based in Washington D.C., we have a 50% Donation Match happening on donations. DON'T GIVE YET!  PLEASE WAIT UNTIL THE WEEK OF SEPT 12-18 FOR THE ACTIVE MATCH LINK: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/funding-the-integral-heart-school-in-2022/

Now, to continue the story of the origin of our work here. For those who may have missed it, PART I is below.

PART II:
So the seminal question from our vacation here in the summer of 2009 was 'Where is all this potential going to go?'  

We sat with this question, meditated on it and discussed many times while sitting on our couch overlooking the Rockies in Mountain West of the U.S. Life was good for us, we had savings and residual incomes. My book was just published and I was getting coaching requests so I could work from anywhere that had an internet connection.

So, we pondered the idea of just moving to Guatemala and following on a developing some answer to this question. Our vacation there was really lovely so it seemed plausible, and having lived in three countries prior to this, not at all our of the ordinary. 

We called a shipping company, had a great bunch of friends help us fill up a 40' box. We sold our car and bought a rugged 4x4 because this was also going to be a road trip of lifetime (and we had a Golden puppy and did not want to subject him to the trials of flying).

So, we got back from Guatemala in late August 2009 and by Thanksgiving that same year the box was full and we headed south. In all fairness to our spontaneity, I had flown back down in October and found us a place to live. 

In our 4x4 was enough basic furniture and clothing to tie us over until the container arrived, at least three weeks after we would have reached Guatemala.

After ambling through southern Utah, New Mexico and Texas, visiting friends along the way, we finally reached the border in Brownsville. We stopped at a Walmart to get some extra things and we can still remember to this day that sense of trepidation that after we cross that line there is no coming back.

So we did. Papers in hand for Pancho. but the animal import guys did not even want to see him!  Off we went, taking a relaxed pace down the Gulf of Mexico side. We stopped off to play on the beaches, stayed two nights in Veracruz. The up into Chiapas and the amazing rain foresst and back down the Pacific coast, where we spent a few nights at the beach there.

We planned to arrive in Guatemala in mid-December. The border crossing was a flurry of ‘helper’s not helping and crazy paperwork and inspections and by the end of that morning we were in. With our eyes set on Antigua we hoped to be there by the end of the day…

But that was not to happen. A big traffic accident had snarled the southern highway for hours so we backtracked to the northern highlands and just before dark arrived the city of Xela. We found a hotel and planned to head out again the next morning.

And finally, we arrived in lovely Antigua. Unpacking our meagre belonging we set about getting phone and internet connections and set about a way to volunteer.

That we will cover in PART III


_________________________________________________

PART I:
In a reply to our May newsletter, a longtime monthly donor asked; how did it all begin?

The photo, above, was taken during our first trip to Guatemala in the summer of 2009. We had been living up in the States and we wanted to steep ourselves in some Spanish culture but didn’t care to fly back to Deb’s native country of Spain.
So, one night, as we were pondering where to go in Central America, we had some friends over for dinner at our house. One of the ladies casually mentioned that her sister had built a house in Antigua Guatemala. That was the very first mention… So, I googled it. Antigua certainly looked lovely so our plans moved us that way.

We spent the first week in Antigua, a Spanish colonial city where you’d hardly notice the endemic poverty. One morning having coffee I stuck up a conversation with a stranger who mentioned he’d been living here for a few years. He told us that he was helping out some local people by simply driving to and from their local health clinic. We felt that was very admirable.
On the second week, I got itchy feet so we rented a car and took a two-hour ride to a Mayan ruin complex at Iximche. In these days before Waze, we were following a paper map and road signs. Needless to say, we got lost, in a town with a population of about 35,000 people.

As we asked for directions and traversed the small streets, strewn with litter and stray dogs, bordered by cinderblock houses with tin roofs we started to notice a multitude of children in brightly patterned uniforms, carrying books and backpacks, who were merrily skipping along in this spectacle.
A question came to our minds… Where is all this potential going to go?

It was in that moment that the seed of The Integral Heart Family sprouted (and we did eventually find the ruins). We returned to the States and by the end of October that same year, we’d packed our house into a forty-foot container and had plans afoot to drive to Guatemala with our Golden puppy Panchito. That is a story for another day.

With best wishes as always,
Mick Quinn
Co-founder, Integral Heart School, Antigua Guatemala.

Good morning from Guatemala,

You Rock! Yes you do!

So, we just had our April 50% Match week and we started with a goal of finding 150 unique donors. We found 250!  Yes, 100 more than we had set as our team goal. This outpouring of support for our work here in Guatemala landed us in 9th place overall (of 5,500 organizations participating) and also earned us Match Funds of $4,800 for a total gross receipt on the week of $16,000!!  We also brought in 11 new monthly donors during this match week (WOW!).

In other news, the President of Guatemala spoke just this week and is dropped most mask mandates but sadly did not mention the schools which are currently allowed to operate but with strict controls on occupancy. We measured our spaces and are following the current rules which is allowing us to have 14 students at one time in the school. We are also working with the hybrid model that is being used in public school whereby the student get some tuition in-class and the rest is homework. We are awaiting further updates in May.

We would like to wish you a happy start of summer and we will be in touch soon with more news.

With love and respect,

Mick, Debora and all the students and staff
of Integral Heart School Guatemala.

About us:
Integral Heart was founded in 2011 by Mick Quinn and Debora Prieto.
They had vacationed in Guatemala in 2009 and were drawn to its beauty but also felt compelled to respond directly to the potential they saw in the younger generations. They have lived year-round in Guatemala ever since.

The Integral Heart Family School is 100% crowdfunded. We currently have 225 individuals whose monthly and annual donations support our work. The core team of Sustaining Sponsors raises about one half of the total funds needed to operate our school and programs. The rest of the funding is raised in special events and in participation with our funding partner, GlobalGiving based in Washington D.C.

Education is the heart of our work. Our school is home to 65 children receiving classes in Spanish, English, Psychology, Human Rights, Homework Help, Art and serves 1,500 meals monthly.  Since 2011, our programs have delivered classes and support to over 1,200 students and their families in Guatemala. We also provide over a food basket to each of our 45 sponsored families.

Photo updates of our work:
We update our photo albums twice per month here: 
https://www.facebook.com/integralheartfamily

5-year Dream Plan: We are saving to buy/build a school which incorporates our existing educational programs and an animal rescue center. Imagine, One Child - One Animal :-)
If you would like to see our plans for this, click here :-)
https://www.integralheartfoundation.org/DreamPlan.pdf