Rotarian Jim Kite from Brenham, TX wrote this story for his Rotary district newsletter. It details programs in Nicaragua which our club has been supporting since 2002. Jim and another Texan, Frank Huezo, have invested major parts of their lives to what we refer to as “The shoe box project.”
THE CHILDREN OF THE DUMP
Our projects in Chinandega, Nicaragua are still alive and successful after more than 20 years. All three villages of more than 500 homes, which Rotary helped the people build, are now self-sufficient and the schools are functioning. These schools, and others that we are involved with, will continue without our help, but we still help them to progress.
We deliver approximately 2,000 Christmas boxes to the students who qualify through a minimum attendance standard and passing grades. These programs have resulted in our schools having the highest attendance and gaining many national awards for science, math and other competitions.
Though we have built a hospital, clinics, a live-in school for the blind, a pregnant women’s shelter (which has passed 19,000 births to date), our primary focus has always been the education of children and still is our main goal.
The “school of the dump” and the trade school are located in the city of Chinandega but we are not able to promote economic development like we did in the new villages. These two are the main focus of our efforts and they are moving toward self-sufficiency through the products and projects of the trade school at the Betania complex. The trade school now actually provides all of its support by this method and it is continuing to grow and expand these efforts to eventually support the school of the dump and all the other projects, which is our eventual goal.
These efforts have had major support from Rotarians in Iowa, Michigan and Ohio through the Christmas box program and the layettes for the pregnant women’s shelter.
Another un-sung heroe is Faith Mission in Brenham, Texas. They provide us with six to seven container loads of clothing, shoes, belts, etc., as well as other donated goods. Blue Bell Creameries transports these containers free of charge to our shipping partner, Gulf Winds International in Houston, Texas.
Gulf Winds has been an incredible partner for 20 years. They receive and store all of these container loads of clothing, Christmas boxes, layettes and other donated items at their freight forwarding company in Houston. They then load containers (about ten per year), prepare the bills of lading, etc. and deliver the containers to the part of Houston where Hapag-Lloyd ships the containers to Nicaragua at a rate that is less than one-half price, due to the influence and urging of Gulf Winds International. They have been performing all these services for us now for these 20 years and are still eager participants. They will be going to visit our projects later this year in Chinandega and taking some of their employees.
These containers from Faith Mission and Gulf Winds International provide us with over $50,000.each year, either directly or indirectly that helps support our schools. Charlie and Tommy Buscemi through their freight forwarding company (Seven Seas) have always done a great job of preparing the shipping and customs documents which is a tremendous challenge and very time consuming.
Last year we lost a major partner in our schools when a large Nicaraguan Foundation that had been paying one-half of the operating costs at the Trade School withdrew in order to support their own private schools and projects. This is a major problem. The Chinandega 2001 Foundation, which manages and operates the schools, etc. in Nicaragua, is now expanding their fundraising through the Trade School. They have added an expansion of equipment in the sewing school at Betania. They are now beginning to make uniforms for many of the large plants and businesses in the area. We sent them the first $16,000.00 needed for the new machines and equipment to get them started with this project. They still need about $15,000.00 for a multi-head embroidery machine to put logos on these uniforms. At this time they have to contract with an outside company to put these logos on the uniforms. This would be a good project for some Rotary Clubs. We feel confident that this project can, along with the container program, in time, provide adequate funds for the operation of the schools.
It costs us approximately $2500.00 total for the shipping costs, plus all customs and paperwork for each of these containers. This is another good project for some Rotary Clubs. We need to send about ten containers in total each year.
This also provides better training for our students and they can work part-time after school and on weekends to earn money individually, while the school gains much needed funds. It is a win-win situation all around.
After twenty years we are still educating and changing the lives of over 2000 children and helping with a hot school lunch each day.