Our students that still need Mother's Day Baskets

The following students are waiting for the food basket sponsorship.

474 Rosa
963 Mayra
1025 Marcos
1029 Juan
972 Alejandro (this family did receive a Santa Semana Basket)

Please consider sponsoring a basket for one of these families. The cost is $35, and if it is sent directly to Mayan Families then it will be tax deductible. If you sponsor one of these students, please let me know so that I can take them off the list.

Adoptive Families Giving Back to Guatemala: Mother's Day Food Baskets

Mother's Day Food Baskets

Mayan Families Dia de la Madre - Mothers Day Food Baskets

It is Mothers Day and we would like to celebrate Dia de la Madre in Guatemala by giving as many mothers as possible a basket of food to share with their families.

In Guatemala a Mothers work is never done. When they are pregnant they very rarely can afford to see a doctor, when they give birth, it is often at home with an untrained midwife, they usually have more pregnancies than their bodies can cope with.
Daily, they often carry either water on their heads or heavy loads of firewood on their backs, walking for long distances, often with a swaddled baby on their bodies and another small child or two by their side. Once home, they chop wood, cook over an open fire, make tortillas by hand while attending to their families needs.
At the end of a long day, going to bed often means sleeping on a woven straw mat on a dirt floor.

This Mothers Day we would like to make life a little easier for them. Let's support these impoverished Women and their families by donating a Dia de la Madre Food Basket to them. You can donate a basket to the mother of your sponsored family or if you wish, you can donate a basket of food to a needy family ...please make your donation online at the Mayan Families Web site, a simple and safe way to donate.

Please follow this link http://www.mayanfamilies.org/DonateOnline and send your donation of $35 using the Family Aid section and note on it that it is for a Mothers Day Basket. If you would like to nominate a special family or a sponsored student to receive your basket please do so here and include the name or student number.

The mothers in Guatemala need all the help they can get to feed their children and families. Please help them now!

If you would like to pay by check please send your donation made out to Mayan Families to:

Mayan Families
2609 Hartford St.
San Diego, California 92110-2315

If you would like to give this gift in Honor of someone special, please send us an email to dwight@mayanfamilies.org giving us the details and we will put them on our IN HONOR OF Blog.

Best wishes and Happy Mothers Day,
Sharon Smart-Poage
MAYAN FAMILIES


P.S. Please help spread the word by forwarding this e-mail to your community or posting it on your personal blog, web page and your social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Hi5, Ning and any others that are appropriate.

Raffle Winner

The winner of the raffle is Michelle in TN. We raised $35 in the raffle. The family that will receive a food basket from the this raffle is Freddy's family.

Thanks for the continued support.

Who will beneift from this raffe? Laura?

Laura Yolanda is 10yrs old. She is in 3rd grade in 2009.Her birthday is May 3rd.
She lives in a small village above Solola.She lives with her father and her mother, and she has five sisters, one brother and one half brother.
The father works in a restaurant in Guatemala City. He earns $20 US per week.
The mother makes woven baskets out of reeds. She earns $2 US per week.
She is also ill, she has a lot of pain in her stomach, she has not
been able to pay for medical attention.One of her brothers works after school collecting firewood. He sells this and also keeps some for the home. He earns $3 US when he sells the firewood.

Please consider donating to help this family receive a food basket. What better gift to give another parent than to insure that her children are fed?

Please consider contributing to the raffle
Adoptive Families Giving Back to Guatemala: RAFFLE

________________________________________

Who will beneift from this raffle? Freddy?

The first student to be profiled is Freddy. He is one of the five students that will benefit from this raffle.
We are sponsoring him in school (he is in 5th grade this year) and we have sent this family vitamins. I currently have a request in for ways that we can help this family. His family is very poor and need our assistance desperately. This family did not receive an Easter food basket and I would LOVE to be able to provide the family with a Mother's Day food basket. You can donate and win a great piece of art.
Adoptive Families Giving Back to Guatemala: RAFFLE

Freddy is 11 yrs old. He lives with his mother and father and 3 siblings (12, 5, and almost 2). They do not own their own house, they are renting a house in Panajachel. They pay $22 a month for one room. The father is a builder's assistant. He makes $4.60 US a day. They have just one bed. They have a small kitchen that they have made out of tin sheets. They do not have any closets to mind their clothes, they keep all their possessions in a cardboard box. They cook over an open fire on the ground.
They lost their rented house and all their possession in the Hurricane Stan last year.

RAFFLE

Welcome to our first raffle to raise funds for Guatemalan causes. This campaign is to raise money for food baskets for Mother's Day in Guatemala. The baskets will go to our sponsored students' families. You do not have to participate in the raffle to donate money to this cause.

This raffle will end at midnight on April 25, 2009.

This raffle is for a personalized piece of artwork. The value is $50. This is an EXAMPLE:






You will work with the artist to specialize your piece.

The number of entries you receive will depend on the amount donated to this worthy cause $3 for one entry; $5 for two; and $10 for five entries. So the more you donate the greater chance you have to get a wonderful piece of art for your home (or that special mother in your life).

I will send an email out to the winning entry by noon on April 26, 2009.

These donations are not tax deductible

This is from a gracious mom who is not an adoptive parent, but interested in abolishing poverty.

Here is some info from her blog:
Initial Designs

Initial Designs is a business that has been in development for years, but finally came together in October of 2007. I am the owner and artist, Melissa Jackson, and I specialize in lettering and will create a custom piece of art on canvas for any room of your home or as a unique gift.

These are other examples of her work:

Hello Again

We hope to be changing the blog to blogger soon. Please bookmark both sites. The current domain name .... www.givingbacktoguatemala.org will be where you will find out new site. There will be a link to the blog on the new site.

I also will be hosting a raffle for mother's day. The proceeds will go towards Mother's Days baskets for sponsored students families.

If anyone would like to contribute to raffles or donate items to sell on the new site. I will give you 3 months free advertising for donating an item to sell or raffle.

Need Input???

I am looking for individuals or businesses interested in improving lives. There is advertising space that will be available on the new site for $5/month. I am also looking for anyone who would like to donate items to be sold or raffled for funds to be distributed in our next project.

Please contact me at givingtoguatemala@gmail.com