SO MUCH LOVE

Thank you so much to all of our sponsors over the Christmas Season.  We all know that times are tough, especially during the holiday season, it isn't always easy to find that extra few dollars to help out.  Thanks to all of our dedicated sponsors and new supporters in Englehart and P.E.I. who generously donated to help make our annual Christmas party a huge success.

Lots of presents for all the good girls and boys.  Santa was at the Centre early this year.......
Ho Ho Ho Ho

The pineapple cake was the favorite of the day.  Not your typical Christmas cake in Canada, but a very popular choice in Puerto Plata.






Our kids have one thing they love to do more than anything else and that is dance Merengue.  They are taught as infants, and are the best little dancers around.

FELIZ NAVIDAD!
As you can see by these photos the kids all had a great time, with lots of food, fun and games and presents.  Thank you again to all of our sponsors for their generosity and so much love.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas is approaching faster than we can imagine.  We are busy fundraising for our annual Dominicanada Christmas party.  Thank you to Ally for her donation from selling her pop bottle cap necklaces to her classmates. Thank  you to all in Englehart, Tammy MacKinnon and her friends and family in P.E.I. for starting us off with a blast.  Donations are still being collected and can be made with the yellow paypal donate button you see directly to the left of this post.  All donations will be used to purchase food for a planned 70 kids (although last year we were able to feed 150!).  We hope to be able to raise enough funds to copy the party we had last year.  Hearty sandwiches for all, cake, fruit kabobs, and a very fruity fruit punch, candies, cookies, lollipops and goodie bags to take home.  We hope to be able to have gifts for each child as we did last year as well.  There definitely will be lots of loud music and dancing again we can guarantee that!

On behalf of everyone from our Dominicanada family, we thank you for all your love and support.  We wish you and your families all a Merry Christmas and all the best in 2012.

NEW YORK NEW YORK

Mary Rapuano and her group of 20 teachers spent the day at the Youth Development Centre today.  The kids loved having the group there, and told our teachers that they were so happy to spend their day with 'Americanos'!

Upon her return Mary sent a note that read,

"Our visit to the DR was a success, and we had a wonderful time at Dominicanada! What a great program you are running. Hopefully we will be able to work together again in the future".

Mary and her volunteers made decorative flip flops and one of their favorite past times, colouring with the kids.  They also brought donations of school supplies that are so desperately needed.  Thank you to Mary and fellow teachers for your donations, and help, to keep the Centre open until the end of 2011.

PHOTOS OR FOTOS IN SPANISH

My apologies to those of you that have been waiting to see photos of new uniforms, school supplies, hurricane relief, and our Christmas party.  We have now been able to train our teachers to dowload photos to the computer and send them via email.  More updates to follow.

NEW UNIFORMS

Here are some photos of our kids with their new uniforms, thank you to all who supported our cause.  Uniforms, shoes, knapsacks and school supplies for all.

IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION

We are well into September now, and our Dominicanada kids are all settled in school. They are so happy to be able to go to school. Education and school are a privilege in the Dominican Republic. The education system is free in the DR; you don’t have to pay for tuition for public school. There are Municipal schools that charge a minimal tuition, and private schools, considered the best education, that are too costly for average Dominican families. If a family are able to pay for tuition, one is able to attend a better school. If a Dominican child wants to attend a Public School where there is no tuition, the family still has to pay for supplies. Many children are not able to attend school because the family cannot afford the uniforms and school supplies. In the Dominican Republic, there are classes in the mornings for the younger children, afternoon classes for older children, and many adults attending school at night.  Our 70 kids are from ages 4-9, attending Kindergarten to 4th grade. We also have 15 children that are from ages 9-13 still attending these grades. Thank you to our donors, with your support and donations we are able to work in conjunction with our school to offer our Dominicanada Youth Development program as well. We are so proud of our program.  It's all about education, and with that, we can change lives.

FUNDRAISING

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my Canadian friends who so kindly purchased one of our coconut butterflies.  45 were sold in total, and $450.00 was raised to go towards uniforms for this school year.  The 50/50 draw was also successful and tickets were sold to raise $265.00.  Half to go to the winner of the draw and half to fund the Centre.  Diane Bruce from Bolton, won the draw, and generously donated her part of the winnings back to Dominicanada for funding for the Dominicanada program to continue.  Thank you to Diane, and all who helped our summer fundraising efforts.  A special thanks to Tanya for helping me with all the sales of butterflies and tickets.

AWARENESS VIDEO

We have filmed an awareness video, one that we will be able to show our supporters.  It will be posted here on the blog shortly.  We visited Franklin's house and filmed there to try to show the kid's reality to our supporters.  I am in these houses on a daily basis, and have become somewhat accustomed to that reality.  Our Dominican cameraman on the other hand, was shaken and actually shed a tear when he began to film.  He stated that he didn't realize how bad the conditions were for some of his people. Here is a photo of the roof of Franklin's house.  This part of the roof is in his bedroom right above his head where he sleeps.

COCONUT SHELL BUTTERFLIES

No one will believe that 10 yr old children have made these butterflies.  What started out being a simple painting project turned out to be highly artistic.  I contacted the artists that made the original coconut shell butterflies that I spotted in a store in Puerto Plata, and asked if he would cut the coconut shell for each child in the shape of a butterfly.  The artist complied, and also offered to come to the centre and volunteer to teach the children how to paint them.  Alberto and his assistant, came to the centre twice and our kids caught on very quickly.  All were painted in many different colours and I couln't be more proud of the job they did. The butterflies will be on display and eventually sold.  All proceeds will go towards school uniforms for September.

SPORTS CAMP

Today we held our first sports camp at the Centre.  Races with spoons and eggs, balloon races, and hula hoop races all went over well.  The obstacle course was a favorite.  Little did we know our kids were so competitive.  They had fun competing and were all rewarded with 1st, 2nd or participant badges.  We also had a super special badge that went to the child who had the best attitude and was the best team player.  Congratulations Christopher!  The best part of the day was our super water balloon toss, the children loved the fact that they could cool down a bit in the hot sun.

BUTTERFLIES

With some time to spare after English Class today, the kids made butterflies out of pipe cleaners and pom-poms.  We aren't sure exactly why but they referred to them as 'good luck butterflies'....so be it!

VOLUNTEERS

Welcome visitors.  We spent a very educational day with Julie, Leanne, and Luke from Canada.  They came to the centre to volunteer with the kids of Dominicanada.  Julie led a class on self defense and how to protect yourself.  Five main areas to poke, kick, or elbow if someone were to have you in a hold.  Leanne and Luke taught the kids how to floss and brush their teeth properly.  Fun to watch the kids with dental floss for the first time in their lives.  Then to top it all off a class led by Leanne on juggling.  The kids had great fun with their juggling balls, and had lots of laughs learning how to keep them all in the air.  Thank you to Julie, Leanne, and Luke for all the school supply donations that you brought along with you, because of your generosity, so many kids will be able to attend school this September.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Our Mother's Day celebration was a huge success.  The children all took great pride in presenting their skits, songs and dances.  Ally played the guitar with some back up singers.  Mom's, abuelas (grandmothers) and kids alike all enjoyed their day.  The table was full of homemade gifts compliments of the kids for each and every mom. Happy Mother's Day to all.

MORE GIFTS FOR MOMS

The kids made more gifts for Mother's day today that included chickens made from felt, and greeting cards. As materials are hard to come by, we made lamps from styrofoam cups, and dolls from wooden spoons.

KRAFT SMOOTHY

Each time our kids are at the Centre, we have a snack before we begin our activities.  Our kids love peanut butter and Cheese Whiz, but the favorite is definitely peanut butter. Our daily helpers take great pride in spreading the smoothy and handing it out to their buddies.

MOTHER'S DAY GIFTS

The kids of Dominicanada are busy preparing for Mother's Day which is the last Sunday of May in the Dominican Republic.  Here are some of the different crafts our children are busy making for their mothers and grandmothers.  Paper mache plates and flowers from tissue paper.

MANGO TIME

Mangos are in season now.  No matter where you look you will surely see kids (and adults) eating them everywhere.  Mangos are a favorite treat for Dominican children.  Helping yourself to anyone's tree, is to be expected.  With so many pits left over we decided to make them useful and here is what we came up with; Mango Fish.  Made with a dried mango pit and some good old fashion coloured markers!

HELLO....WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

"Hello" and "What's your name", are usually the first two things that Dominicans will say when asked if they speak English. Lately I have noticed that the younger generation of Dominicans all have a great desire to learn the English language.  A highly needed skill to be able to work in the hotels, and in the tourist industry.  We decided to begin teaching English to our kids at Dominicanada as soon as possible.  I know from experience that it was much more difficult for me to pick up the Spanish language as an adult.  My daughter on the other hand was fluent by the age of three.  So little by little we will introduce basic grammar, conversation, games and songs in English. 

This week we had our first English class on things to wear, and things in the neighbourhood.  The kids were very attentive.  They recognized words that sounded very similar in both languages.  Pants are pantalones, lamp and lampara were easy as well.  They walked around practicing all morning, and it was cute to see them imitating me.  I was thrilled to see that they can already put together little phrases.
Eventually we will use Skype to bring our donors live from Canada into the Centre to have actual conversations with their sponsored child. We're looking forward to the day the kids can communicate directly with our sponsors.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

Music is definitely a big part of the lives of Dominican children, it is in their soul.  They light up with even the mention of music.  We began our music classes this week with a local teacher Fran from Puerto Plata.  The kids made drums with recycled plastic gallon jugs. It was a noisy day......but great fun!  This week we will make güiras, a typical Dominican instrument that looks like a cheese grater!  This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCira will show you a photo and the actual sound of a güira.  We will make our  güiras with a recycled can of baby milk.  We'll hammer holes with a nail, evenly perforated and put the serrated edges on one side. The metal will be raised, and they will be played with a hair pic or a stiff metal brush.  Shortly we will have a class full of professional "Güireros."!