Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Mayan Families needs your help!


Dear Amigos of Mayan Families,

Many of you may be aware that Guatemala is facing a huge crisis. The President of Guatemala has called it "a calamity".

The drought has caused severe food shortages and the cost of basic food itemscontinues to rise daily.According to Unicef almost half of Guatemala’s children are chronically malnourished—it has the sixth worst record in the world. In parts of rural Guatemala, where the population is overwhelmingly people of Mayan descent, childmalnutrition reaches 80%.A diet of little more than tortillas does permanent damage.This is the only diet that many families have right now.
In Guatemala, which has some of the worst levels of chronic malnutrition, children have already started dying. In rural areas, thousands of families can no longer afford to eat. Malnutrition rates are rising among the very young, and the elderly. We have many mothers who are not eating, just surviving on a few tortillas a day so that they can give the food to their children.

Children who suffer from chronic malnutrition are not in immediate danger of starvation,but they will face stunted growth and a diminished mental capacity. The children don’t look underweight — they just look tiny. Some have light hair, others have patches of hair missing,some are even bloated.Families that before could afford to feed their children, are nowstruggling but the families that were already living without enough to eatare now facing daily hunger and the children are quickly becomingmalnourished and sick.Daily, we have families coming to our door who have nothing to eat. The worst affected are single mothers whose wages were barely able to keep thefamily together before this crisis. Now, they just do not have enough tofeed their children even the very basics.

Through your help, Mayan Families currently feeds over 110 children everyday at our three pre-schools. These are children that have been identifiedas malnourished or are in danger of becoming malnourished.We have started a feeding program for the Elderly this week. Many of theelderly people do not have enough to eat and are becoming very malnourishedand weak.We need your help to be able to continue to feed these people and the manymore who need help.This is a crisis situation and while we believe in long term solutions...right now ...people who are hungry cannot wait for crops that will growduring a severe drought or chickens that will lay eggs. They need help today.

The biggest need and challenge facing the indigenous people of Guatemalathis year and in the coming year will be the struggle to have enough to eat.The United Nations children's fund, UNICEF, reports that Guatemala has theworst malnutrition problem in Latin America, even higher than the 35.2percent average in Africa!October 1st is Children's Day in Guatemala. We traditionally celebratedthis with a pinata and cake.

This year, in the hopes of giving childrenfood, we are asking for a small donation of $10 or more to be able to provide a child with a bag of corn and several pounds of beans totake home. Beans are sometimes the only protein the children will receive.We need food for general distribution.....this is for families that are indesperate situations, many of these will be single mothers.

A 100 lb bag of corn is $35US. This will supply a family of five withtortillas for two weeks .A 100lb bag of black beans is $90 US. A carton of 30 eggs is $5US. A basket of food with a cooked chicken is $35 US. To help a family get through this crisis, please consider donating today.
Any donation of any size, to help feed a child and their Family will be greatly, greatly appreciated.
We don't want to turn people away that we know can be helped. With your generous donation, we can help those who are in terrible situations and give them hope. If you would like to nominate your sponsored student to receive your gift of food, we would be very happy to do that.


TO DONATE:Please click on the link to visit our website and donate online athttp://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=43874000&msgid=602950&act=HH3G&c=316576&admin=0&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mayanfamilies.org%2FDonateOnline

and put it in the General Donation area, "Where most needed".You may also choose to send your donation in the form of a check.
Please make it payable to Mayan Families and send to:

Mayan Families
P.O. Box 52
Claremont, N.C. 28610

We are asking you to join in our efforts to help the Guatemalan people bygiving a tax-deductible donation.We hope that you will be able to help us with a donation of $25, $50 ormore, this will feed a lot of children. However, any donation no matter howsmall is always welcomed and appreciated. We make every dollar count! We are asking that all contributions - personal, employee and corporate - bemade as soon as possible.

You can make a difference right now, today!

Thank you for your support.

Best wishes,
Sharon Smart-Poage
MAYAN FAMILIES
Tel: 619-550-2608

ABOUT US:Mayan Families is a small non-profit group working in the Highlands ofGuatemala. We are a registered 501(c) (3) Non Profit Charity.

Your donationis tax deductible. P.S. Please help spread the word by forwarding this e-mail to yourcommunity or posting it on your personal blog, web page and your socialnetworks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Hi5, Ning and any others thatare appropriate.


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IN HONOR OF Blog.Mayan Families is a non-profit, tax-exempt charitable organization underSection 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Donations aretax-deductible.

Thank you once again for supporting Mayan Families!
Posted by About Mayan Families at 8:48 PM

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