Honors Spanish Program at Edgewood Jnr./Snr. High.

A big thank you to Mrs. Rosa Perotti and her wonderful students in the Honors Spanish Program at Edgewood Jnr./Snr. High School in Merritt Island, Florida.
They collected a huge amount of clothes, shoes, toys, blankets etc to be distributed here in Guatemala at Christmas. These items are going to make so many people happy ....there were also lots of boys action figures which are going to be so appreciated by the boys here!  Thank you for taking the time and the effort to collect these goods and send them to us....we are so grateful.

Chuitanimit. ..a community in need.

Chuitanimit is a small community with a lot of needs. The basically have nothing.
This is a community that lost their land due to the mudslides earlier this year.
They have been relocated to a piece of land and have been provided Shelterboxes to live in.

Shelterboxes are a wonderful tent that can fit probably 10 people sleeping in them. They are meant for emergency situations but not for long term living.
These families already came from a very poor community. All they had was the homes that they lived in....now they have lost those and they are trying to rebuild their lives.
The Guatemalan govt. has said that they will purchase land for them and they will build houses.
In the long run, they probably will do this but it could take a long, long time to complete. In the meantime, the families live in these tents. Quite often extended families living in one tent....they were given thin sponge mattresses to sleep on but in this cold weather , it is not sufficient. Already two children have been taken to hospital with pnuemonia. The weather is very cold at night in the highlands. The families need mattresses to sleep on.
Beds will not fit in the tents but a double mattress will give at least 5-6 people a warm place to sleep.
A double mattress costs $45 US.....we need 25 of them to give to this community so that they can all have a warm place to sleep during this winter.

We would like to give them a tamale basket each ....so that this community can celebrate Christmas. These baskets of food cost $35 US and will feed a family of ten. Please consider giving a gift to help this community.


These are the tents that the families are living in. Thank you Shelter box for providing these. Before they got the tents they were sleeping under pieces of plastic sheeting.














A community bathroom. There are 100 plus people living in this community. There are 57 children.

If you can possibly help one of these families to have a mattress to sleep on and/or a basket of food, you would be making a huge difference in their lives.
To make a donation please go to this link.http://www.mayanfamilies.org/DonateNow
and make your donation through Community Aid...please specify that it is for  Chuitanimit.

Newsletter from Mayan Families, December-2010

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Newsletter-from-Mayan-Families-December-2010.html?soid=1103559743325&aid=6v4OJ2SHT20

Manuel needs urgent medical care.

Manuel is in urgent need of medical help. He is one of the elderly people in our Elderly Care program.
Please read his story here.
http://mayanfamilieselderlycare.blogspot.com/2010/12/manuel-urgently-needs-medical-care.html

Thank you Avalon Rotary Club, Catalina Island, California!

We want to sincerely thank the Avalon Rotary Club on Catalina Island, California for the wonderful donation to help ship books to Guatemala.
We are very grateful to Karen  and Mac MacKay, who have worked so hard to collect books for the schools in Guatemala.   Karen and Mac are retired school teachers who came to Guatemala, taught school here for a year and saw the tremendous need that the Guatemalan schools have. 
Most schools in the Highlands do not have a library, most schools here in the highlands have few, if any, books.
When Karen and Mac realized that there was a store room of Spanish books in schools in California that were not being used, they worked very hard to raise the funds to send these books to Guatemala.
Not only did they get a huge amount of books to the schools last year, but they flew down, spent weeks organizing the books and distributed them to schools.
They now have collected another huge amount of books for High Schools.
They will be shipping these books and will once again be coming down to help sort and donate.
They could not do this without the help that they have received from the Avalon Rotary Club.  
The McKays still need some help with shipping funds...if you can help, even a little, please go to the link below.
http://www.mayanfamilies.org/DonateNowOnce again, thank you Avalon Rotary Club and thank you to Karen and Mac McKay!

Boxes of Hope and Love in Guatemala!

These are the Hope Chests that our wonderful volunteer, Michael designed. Michael visited many homes and saw that the children often had no beds, no tables and nowhere to store their clothes and possessions. Michael decided to start building Hope Chests .....they can be used as storage, they can be used as a bed for a small child to sleep on, they can be used as a table to eat at and also do homework.

They are beautifully painted and depending on the volunteers and their artistic abilities , they have some fantastic designs. They are all built with love!

These boxes were donated to be given to families who are very much in need.
We chose families in Panajachel who really needed to have something as useful as this box.

As you can see the families were very happy to have them. Michael and Mayan Families staff member, Carlos delivered them to the families.

If you would like to donate a Hope Chest, they are $80 US.
Thank you Michael and Carlos for all your hard work on these boxes. Thank you to the people who donated to make these boxes possible.

Mayan Families Holiday Cards Now Available!

This Holiday season, consider giving the gift of a donation in the name of a friend or family member. Mayan Families has six holiday cards now available. There are six cards total: two are for general donations, and four are for specific donation types (tamale basket, bed, water filter, or stove donations). You can download the card as either a PDF or JPEG file. Just download the card you want, print a copy, write your name and the donation details, and give it to the person in whose name the donation was made.

Because the software for this website won't allow the cards to uploaded here, all six cards are being hosted at a blog site run by three Mayan Families volunteers: http://micromundo.org/2010/12/07/mayan-families-holiday-cards/.

Scroll down to read about each of the cards available. Click here to see the complete cards and to  download the file you'd like to print out!

General Holiday Card: This card can be used for any donation type or amount. To make a donation or to see the donation types available, go to the Mayan Families Donate Now page. Easy to Print General Card: This card can also be used for any donation type or amount, but will use less ink than the other general card. To make a donation or to see the donation types available, go to the Mayan Families Donate Now page.

Bed Donation Holiday Card: This card is specifically designed for a bed donation. A complete bed and mattress donation costs $170. To donate a bed, go to the Mayan FamiliesDonate Now page, enter the donation amount in the Other box, and in theExtra Details box specify “Bed donation — where most needed.” Or, choose a specific family in need of a bed from theFamily Aid Blog.

Holiday Tamale Basket Donation Card: This card is designed for holiday tamale basket donations specifically. A tamale basket provides enough food for a traditional Guatemalan Christmas feast for up to twelve people, and costs $35. To donate a tamale basket, go to the Mayan Families Donate Now page, enter your donation in theGeneral box, and write “General Tamale Basket Donation” in the Extra Notes section. You can also send a basket for a family specifically — read about families in need on the Family Aid Blog.

Water Filter Holiday Card: This card is specifically designed for water filter donations. A water filter donation costs $50. To donate, go to the Mayan Families Donate Now page, enter in your donation in the Other box, and write “Water Filter — where most needed” in the Extra Notes box. You can also choose a specific family to receive a filter from the Family Aid blog.

Stove Donation Holiday Card: This card is specifically designed for water filter donations. A water filter donation costs $50. To donate, go to the Mayan Families Donate Now page, enter in your donation in the Other box, and write “Water Filter — where most needed” in the Extra Notes box. You can also choose a specific family to receive a filter from the Family Aid blog.

These are what the covers for the individual cards will look like. To see inside the cards and to download the file that you would like to print out, click here.