Saturday, August 04, 2007

Christmas In Roatan

Dear Supporters,

This year the Roatan Children's Fund is going to try to reach out and do a more extensive project for the Children of Roatan.

This past year has brought wonderful donations for the children of the Majken Broby Children's Home and lots of school supplies for the schools and the Healthy Family project. So, this Christmas we would like to branch to help more of the children on the Island.

Since shipping boxes down is so incredibly difficult and expensive (we still have to pay duty on all items brought into the country) I thought it would be good for people to take advantage of the back to school sales now and stock up on loss leaders that you can just put in your luggage on your next trip to Roatan. So many of the families on the Island are so poor that a gift of pencils, crayons, or children's vitamins are more valuable than toys. I know everyone wants to give gifts like toys but we have to be practical also and remember that we want to help improve lives with items that they need like educational supplies and vitamins and shoes to attend school.

The children at the Majken Broby Children's Home get Christmas gifts from a church group in Tampa .The Roatan Children's Fund will buy a one nice gifts for all of the 18 children, so they will have a Merry Christmas. We will also have 4 different Board members in Roatan during the 6 weeks before Christmas to help coordinate all this. Our goals would be to hand out gifts to the children in French Harbor and Los Fuertes. Ideas for toys would be stuffed animals, coloring books, crayons, toy trucks,Frisbees,small puzzles, soccer balls, underwear, playing cards, vitamins, hair clips, dress shoes for school ( black or white). There are children on Roatan that do not go to school because parents cannot afford to buy shoes and uniforms. We will collect everything at Playa Miguel and distribute them at Christmas.The school supplies will be distributed in February ( back to school.) Don't worry if you are not going down before February because this will be an ongoing project and we will store items for next year. This will solve the problem and expense of shipping.

If this goes as planned we will make sure that all the CoCo View/Playa Miguel employee's children get a nice gift from us at this time also.

Thanks,
Lynn
PS you can order your 2008 fundraising calendar by clicking on the button at the top of this email