Vecinos of Leon

Kids in a small rural school hold up supplies from Vecinos, delivered by Maverick and Crispin, two of our most hard-working volunteers, who live in nearby cities. Photo by Maverick Velasquez.

Early this year we weren’t worried about COVID-19. No one had heard of it yet. In January, we were more concerned about Nicaragua’s ongoing political strife. But I had traveled to Nicaragua in November to assess the situation, and returned confident that we could take a team of volunteers down safely and carry out our annual project as usual.

The previous year, 2019, was the first year in a decade that we had not traveled to the country to bring school supplies, dental treatments, veterinary care, and school repairs to the small rural communities we serve near the city of Leon, Nicaragua. Political violence was still too volatile.

That didn’t mean the project was cancelled. We have the best volunteers in the world, and most live in Nicaragua. Maverick Velasquez, our Nicaragua Project Coordinator, worked with our school liaison Crispin Canales to assess the needs of the students and the communities. After a successful fundraising cycle, our Program Director Mateo Garibaldi couriered the funds to Nicaragua in early March while visiting friends and family.

Maverick bought all the school supplies, and Maverick and his wife and mother packed them all into boxes by classroom, a huge task we usually do with teams of 10 people or so. Then they delivered those supplies to the classrooms with a small group of volunteers. It was a ton of work, and I felt bad that they’d had so much to do by themselves. I was sure we would be able to help this year.

But storm clouds were gathering. Awareness of COVID-19 began to emerge in February, but I refused to worry. Then the U.S. volunteers, of which we had the largest group in our history, started cancelling for various reasons. Sherry Cook, my mother-in-law and a brilliant volunteer, shockingly developed lung cancer. We lost her two months later.  My aunt Mary, another erstwhile annual volunteer, injured her foot. Rob Sweetser, our Youth Coordinator, got a new job and couldn’t travel. His Mom, Gina, our R.N., also experienced a sudden career intensity and reluctantly cancelled her plans to volunteer. Two other young people withdrew.

That left just Steve Swank, the fabulous volunteer from the Des Moines, Wash. Rotary Club, (and now a board member!) and I. The COVID-19 numbers kept going up as the date approached. A conference in Australia I was supposed to present a paper was cancelled just days before we were scheduled to leave for Nicaragua. I bought travel insurance for my ticket and crossed my fingers. Steve was already in Central America, and planned to meet me in Leon. But national borders began to close around the world. The U.S. State Department advised that all non-essential international travel be cut.

Finally, a week before I was scheduled to fly, I had to face the facts. It wasn’t safe, and there was no guarantee I could get home. More importantly, Seattle, where I live, was the center of the first COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. Many friends had been affected; three almost died. I’d been working from home for weeks, but it was not ethical to risk bringing the virus to a country with many vulnerable people far from medical care. Mateo and Steve agreed it was the right thing to do, and we called it off.

Once again, for the second year in a row, Maverick and his family did a colossal amount of work by themselves. We all decided to delay the project until May to get a better sense of how to carry on. In May, once again, they bought all the supplies, loaded them all in trucks, drove them many miles over bad roads to far-flung schools, and dispersed them. This year, they added new schools, as well, even more remote and difficult to access, and Maverick and Crispin and other volunteers had to carry supplies a long way on foot to reach one of them.

We were not able to provide dental care-the risk of spreading COVID was too high-but our extraordinary team of veterinarians, headed by the incomparable Duilio Juarez, gave vitamin and anti-parasite treatment to hundreds of farm animals in two of our communities. And we also were able to provide new wooden chairs to one school, and to do repairs on school playground equipment at several others.

In my next post, I will write the details of all the supplies given and the animals treated.

Once again, think you from the bottom of my heart, on behalf of all of us, for your support. These are trying time for all of us, and that you have been willing to remember our neighbors to the south through this speaks to your generosity and compassion for those with fewer resources with which to face these challenges.

Friends, we have begun fundraising for our 2020 trip to Nicaragua. Here is our message to supporters:

Eleven years ago, Vecinos of Leon was begun as part of Adelante, a larger nonprofit founded by Mateo Garibaldi, who is now one of our board members,that provided educational services in the city of Leon, Nicaragua. We began by providing school supplies to small rural schools in the countryside around Leon, with a goal of helping farm children get through the 6th grade. Most farm kids still don’t get that far, but those that do can go on to further education, and also have the basic math and writing skills it takes to run a small business or help their families succeed.

Today, Vecinos of Leon is a stand alone non-profit, consisting of five American board members and 14 Nicaraguan volunteers. Each year we provide school supplies for all the children in five impoverished farm communities. We also provide teaching supplies to the teachers, dental care to children and families in need, veterinary treatments for the local farm animals, and small repairs for school buildings and equipment. We know that the decision about whether to allow a child to stay in school depends a lot on the health and economic strength of the family, and we are committed to helping in the ways that Nicaraguans tell us will do the most good.

We take great pride in the fact that our project is guided by Nicaraguan people. Our team leaders, Crispin and Maverick, coordinate with the school district every year to identify struggling communities and to learn their needs. Our dentists and veterinarians are all Nicaraguan as well. We simply make it financially possible for Nicaraguan people to provide assistance to their fellow citizens, in the ways that they know best will help lift them out of poverty.

With your support, we can help our neighbors to the south achieve their goals for their children. Rural schools often consist of small cinder block buildings with little electricity, no indoor plumbing, and no technology of any kind, long distances down dirt roads from the nearest dentist or vet. It is possible to get a good basic education under those circumstances, but only if the kids can go. We help make that possible.

Fortunately, it costs little to help. Just nine dollars supplies a child with a year’s worth of school supplies. It costs about four dollars to supply dental care to a patient. It costs less than a dollar to give vitamin and anti-parasite treatments to a cow, horse or pig, which helps keep water clean and families and animals healthy. Every dollar of your donation goes directly to the cost of supplying these services in Nicaragua. We pay our own travel expenses, and we are all volunteers.

Please find us on facebook at www.facebook.com/vecinosofleon, read more about our story, see pictures of the people we assist, and touch a child’s life.

I want to share about this year’s project in Nicaragua, including some photos. In short, we have the world’s best volunteers. We did not travel this year ourselves, for the first time ever in 11 years, because of political turbulence that is already a lot calmer, so we will go next year, God willing. Our volunteers in Nicaragua carried the project out themselves, which was a LOT of work for a group led by Maverick, a man with a family

with a new baby whose mama Marta and grandma also did a ton of work. It also shows that the system we have built over the last decade is very functional now. Our co-founder, Mateo Garibaldi, ferried our funds to Nicaragua, and our long-time Nicaragua coordinator, Maverick, bought all the school supplies for five schools, including three new schools that we have never worked with before, that are more remote and rural than the ones we already work with!

Then, after a brutal day of packing boxes and a very long drive right past the crater of a smoking volcano, the team, including our amazing school liaison Crispin, went to the very remote community of Aguas Frias, which means Cold Waters. Because of the turbulence, we weren’t able to coordinate the dentists this year, but the veterinarians made it, and they treated 280 horses, 170 cows, 30 pigs, 20 dogs and 1 cat! The children were very excited about the school supplies, Maverick said.

The next day, the team headed off to Los Mangles, where we have worked for several years. See the videos of the little dance and presentation that the school did for us so we (and you) could see it on video. They thanked us all by name for not forgetting about them in the nation’s time of trouble. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

On Thursday, March 15, they headed out to El Caracol (The Snail!), another new school,

also remote and rural. There is a delightful picture of a pretty young girl, about whom Maverick wrote to us: “Esta niña no estaba asistiendo a clases por razones economicas su mamá no tiene dinero para comprarle los artículos escolares , y con la ayuda que se le entrego comenzó este día ir a clases un claro ejemplo de que realmente estamos

ayudando a los niños a que asistan a clase.” That means, “This girl was not going to go to school this year for economic reasons, because her mother didn’t have money to buy school supplies, and with our help she began coming to classes today. It is a clear example of the real impact we can have helping children go to school.

Monday, March 18, the team set out for the third new school, La Morita. That, too, is a remote rural community that I am very excited to see for the first time next year. Finally, after a full week of packing boxes, driving hours and hours of really, really bad road, the team went to the last school, La Leona, which we have visited a number of times, and concluded this year’s project.

I don’t have words for how awesome and amazing Maverick, Crespin, and all our Nicaraguan volunteers are. This was an incredible amount of work, usually done with five or six American volunteers to help, they carried out alone, and coordinated three new schools that were hard to reach. They take this project so seriously that each year they work to make it better. This year, they plan to prepare reports for all of us. I will make those available soon.

Thank you to all of you who helped make this happen. Our Jam for Nicaragua has been nominated by the Washington Blues Society for Best Non-Festival Event, because of all your help, too. I’m crying inside because I didn’t get to go myself this year, but we were being careful. I miss it there so much, though. Please consider volunteering with us next year. You will love it, too.

See below for more photos!