St. Chrysostome, Prince Edward Island, Canada – Last year, Father Eloi Arsenault made a commitment to raise $2,500 for the Mexican charity he’s worked with every winter since his retirement in 2010.

He floored everyone in the room when he returned to the community of Puerto Vallarta this year and reported that he’d actually managed to raise more than $11,000, thanks to the kindness of Islanders.

The original total would have paid a volunteer teacher’s honorarium for a year at the charity’s school.

"He just about fell off his chair," chuckled Arsenault, referring to the colleague who had asked him how much he’d raised. "He started to cry and said ‘It’s a miracle, it’s miracle.’"

"He explained that the guy who used to send us huge donations, a rich man from the US, had died three months after I’d left to come home. He said we had no more money for the teachers, but that our amount would just about cover the whole thing, seven teachers out of the eight. So he was quite excited," said Arsenault.

For the past three years Arsenault has been working with the Volcanes Community Education Project, a charity that is trying to help give children in Puerto Vallarta's poorest area -kids who used to work sorting garbage - a future through education.

Father Eloi Arsenault

The project has renovated a formerly dilapidated school in the community of Volcanes, collected and refurbished computers for the kids use, provided uniforms, and organized various celebrations for the students and their parents.

Arsenault said that at this time last year, the program had 250 kids enrolled in its education programs - now it has more than 400 students.

That increase, along with the above mentioned loss of their major benefactor, has meant that volunteers, who are all mostly from the United States and Canada, have had to step up their own fundraising efforts.

Arsenault is booked to return to Puerto Vallarta on October 28th, and he’s hoping to raise as much as he can before then. He’s been knocking on doors of some local businesses for the past couple of weeks and he’ll be accepting donations right up until the time that he leaves.

The amount of the donation doesn’t matter, said Arsenault.

"Last year there was a lady who said to me, ‘I want to give a donation.’ She gave me $3.83. That’s all she had. I told her that a small donation is just as important as a big one. All the money goes directly to the project. Nothing is kept for overhead," he said.

"The St. Chrysostome community has been extremely generous to date," he added.

A group of retired local women who call themselves the "Tim Hortons Angels" gave him a significant donation for the project this week. The group gets together for coffee five days a week and chip in a couple of bucks into a pot, then donate their collection to charity every few months.

"I’m a retired school teacher and children are always part of my heart," said Louise Doiron, one of the Angels. "I know that sometimes the children that have the least are often the ones that are most eager to learn. They really appreciate it more."

About the Volcanes Community Education Program

The Volcanes Community Education Program is not funded by the Mexican Government, by the public school system, or by a charity or foundation. All funding for this program is by way of donations. Donations are needed on a continual basis to ensure that this project continues to operate - to purchase supplies for the students and the teachers, as well as to pay the teachers a small stipend of $3,000 pesos per month (approximately $230 per month.) The children in Volcanes need our programs in order to break the cycle of poverty and move into the main stream of Puerto Vallarta life. For more information regarding the program or to find out how you can help, visit the Volcanes Community Education Program website.