In 2008, Polly Straub-Cook took a trip to visit her friend Mateo Garibaldi, who was living in Nicaragua as a full time volunteer. He suggested she raise some funds to get school supplies for the kids at a little country school where he used to volunteer as a college student. She brought $620, graciously donated by friends and members of her local Rotary Club.
For that, they got all the supplies the kids, mostly farmers’ kids, needed, as well as as the supplies the teachers needed for a whole year. With the remaining $200 they built a soccer field. Money goes a long way in Nicaragua.
Without that support, some of those kids wouldn’t have finished the school year. Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the world, and one of the key reasons is that many kids, especially rural kids, don’t achieve a 6th grade education. Even a 6th grade education can make the difference between a person who can do the basic math required to run a home business and one who has to work at poverty wage.
The friends formed “Vecinos,” which means “Neighbors,” as a non-profit initiative as part of Mateo’s larger 501c3, and set out to raise funds each year to support primary school education. Each February, which is the start of the Nicaraguan school year, Vecinos sponsors the school supplies of all the kids in several of the rural Telica school district’s poorest schools.
In recent years Vecinos has added a team of Nicaraguan dentists who volunteer their time to do emergency dental care at the schools, and a team of veterinarians who administer anti-parasite treatments to the farm animals around the schools, to help keep water sources clean. Vecinos also bought a portable dental chair to enable the dentists to fill cavities instead of removing permanent teeth.
Since 2008, Vecinos has replaced and repaired hundreds of broken desks, repainted chalkboards and replaced white boards, repaired doors and windows, and installed and fixed a lot of playground equipment. We’ve also provided dental care to dozens of kids and even their families when possible, and we’ve contributed to the health of hundreds of farm animals and consequently the farm families who own them. We’ve also provided school supplies for hundreds of kids that otherwise might not have been able to attend classes.
We now have a network of volunteers and supporters in Nicaragua, and take volunteers to Nicaragua each year as well, often high school students.
Last year, we took volunteers Gina Giefer and her son Robert, then 17, on the trip as volunteers, and they have since joined the board of our newly formed stand-alone 501c3 organization. We all cover our own travel expenses so that 100% of donations can go toward delivering these supplies and services to our neighbors.
Thank you for your support!