Education Guatemala Project #20003

Save our Elderly & Kids in Crisis Feeding Center

by Mayan Families

Save our Elderly & Kids in Crisis Feeding Center

Project Report | Mar 17, 2016
Thanks to you, we have built a better future!

By Erin Crandell | Project Leader

Alex and two of his surrogate grandparents

Thanks to you, we have been able to meet our final goal of $25,000 for the San Jorge Elderly and Kids in Critical Need Feeding Center. Over 160 of you came together to Save our Center, making a huge difference for hundreds of San Jorge’s most vulnerable citizens!

For many orphans and kids in critical need, this building has become a second home. Take Alex for example. Found by a Mayan Families social worker at the end of 2014, Alex was starving, sitting on the side of the road. Alex was so affected by the death of one of his parents and the breakdown of his home life that he couldn’t speak. Slowly, Alex was able to recover with the help of the San Jorge Elderly and Kids in Critical Need Feeding Center.

Now, Alex has a place where he can be nurtured by his many stand in grandparents, do his homework, practice his Spanish and his Kaq’chikel, and get a hot meal twice a day. Thanks to this support, today little Alex speaks with only a slight stutter and is passing all of his classes! This would have been impossible without the San Jorge Elderly and Kids in Critical Need Feeding Center!

We have hired a full-time psychologist to start healing years of trauma and neglect for children like Alex. She will start holding sessions this year, giving the new generation of San Jorge community leaders a chance to come to terms with the past and build a better future.

Thank you again for everything you have done for the community of San Jorge. The San Jorge Elderly and Kids in Critical Need Feeding Center stands as a safe haven for the town’s most vulnerable, and will be a beacon of hope for a stronger, healthier community.

Two elderly leave the center holding hands

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Dec 21, 2015
Happy Holidays Indeed from San Jorge!

By Erin Crandell | Project Leader

Making crafts together! (Photo by: Erin Crandell)

What better time to reflect on the past year than during the holiday season? Over eight months ago, you helped us save the San Jorge Feeding Center. Since then, the Center has been providing fifty-five members of our Elderly Care Program and almost thirty Kids in Critical Need a safe place to eat lunch every day.

Last week, Mayan Families held a Christmas party at its Panajachel office for all the members of the Elderly Care Program. At this party, we were able to see just how profoundly the San Jorge Feeding Center has changed the lives of the elderly. Many of the elderly in our program have been abandoned by their families—mostly due to the family’s financial situation—but having the Center has given them a chance to form a new community.

Lucia, a member of the Elderly Care Program, was delighted to be a part of the Christmas party. Lucia is from Santa Catarina, and she travels to the Panajachel Elderly Feeding Center every day for lunch. She said she was grateful for the feeding center because it gave her somewhere she could eat lunch every day with her friends. As Lucia proudly showed off her pinecone tree that she had decorated during the party, her near toothless smile was contagious. She was excited to get home and use the tree as decoration in her house in Santa Catarina.

It was heart warming to see the warmth and comradery among the elderly at the Christmas party. A group of ladies started playing around with the pinecones as they were being handed out, even placing them on their heads as funny hats! Because many of the elderly are hard of hearing and sight, children from our Kids in Critical Need Program and volunteers helped many members of the elderly with their crafts. The bridge between the elderly and the youth in the room provided a strong symbol of what Christmas spirit truly means; community, giving, gratefulness, and happiness.

This sense of community is exactly what we hoped to achieve when we built the new San Jorge Feeding Center. Now that we have purchased the building and are committed to supporting the elderly and orphans of San Jorge, we want to do even more! In 2016, we want to realize our dream of transforming the new San Jorge Feeding Center into a Community Center; where the entire community of San Jorge would be able to access Mayan Families services.

To that end, we are increasing our fundraising goal to $25,000, and we hope that we can count on your support! We want the San Jorge Center to be a place where the elderly come to have lunch and play bingo, but we also want it to be available as a tutoring center for struggling students from our Student Sponsorship Program. It would be a place that we could set up one of our medical clinics, or hold one of our Well Mother, Well Baby workshops. Having that kind of space would allow Mayan Families to work even closer with the members of the San Jorge community, and we need you to help us make that happen!

The holidays are a perfect time to reflect on the meaning of community, and we are so grateful that each of you has joined us in making an impact on the community of San Jorge. So from our family to yours, have a happy holiday!

Photo by: Erin Crandell

Lucia, Santa Catarina (Photo by: Erin Crandell)

Christmas party attendees

Links:

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Apr 14, 2015
YOU Saved Our Center!

By Katy Morris | Communications & Marketing Manager

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