Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – Happy July to all of you, and a heartfelt thank you to all for your continued support. This time of year, many of you are usually celebrating a beautiful summer with family, friends and often exploring new places through travel.
Historically, at RISE, the children are off to community summer camps and having summer groups of visitors spend time with them playing soccer or other activities. As we are all experiencing, nothing is as it used to be, and what we previously knew as summer is taking on a new look – and it is being designed in real-time. That is why it is particularly important that we rally together in planning the forward path at RISE.
These are uncharted waters and we have an opportunity to continue to keep RISE on the RISE if we all work together! Before we get to our planning needs, let me provide you a couple highlights on our RISE family, with more details to follow.
I am thrilled to report that the Madres, children, and staff are still virus-free! We are very blessed; we ask that you continue to pray for good health at RISE. We have incredible staff members that come to RISE 6 or 7 days a week to care for the children. They do this out of love, and we are incredibly grateful for their continued presence, which is much-needed.
We currently have 26 children living at RISE, 20 living in the Girls and Boys dormitories, respectively, and 6 in the Cunero (Nursery). Although we celebrated 7 children returning to family members, we added 5 more wonderful children who were in need.
Our children are a loving family and it is beautiful to see how they take care of each other – remember, they have been quarantined since March 13, and truly have not left RISE. They are resilient! They had a pajama and an outdoor movie night, with popcorn and pizza to kick off July. Fun was had by all!
As you can imagine, the donations continue to drop-off as many previous RISE resources have gone to feed the PV community. Additionally, our costs have increased. As you will read, the children have been home 24/7 and the need for additional staff is required.
We thank all of you that have been able to continue to support RISE in these difficult times! Financial predictability is critical for budgeting and planning purposes, so we ask that, regardless of the amount, recurring donations be considered, where possible. If that does not work for you, one-time donations are greatly appreciated, as well! Please click HERE to donate. Thank you to all our donors!
Updates/Going Forward
Education and Psychology
For the remainder of the school year (Mar – Jun), the children were provided online, distance learning by the schools they attended. Professor Jorge hired and organized a 3-person team of child developers to help manage the children through this new learning process. Liliana and Luz (Educational Advisors) continued to provide after school tutoring with the children’s homework.
All of this is essential in supporting our key goal; to provide the children an education that will allow them to be self-supportive when they become independent, young adults. The kids did fantastic work and kept focused until the school year ended on June 19. We are happy announce that one of our children has graduated onto high school!
This summer our education team has put together a great structure for the children to continue learning through instruction and activities. In support of another key goal in education, learning English, the summer program includes 2 levels of classes being taught by local English teachers.
The child developers, referenced earlier, have prior experience leading children’s camps. They will be teaching the children about recycling programs, gardening, art, dance, and singing. The children will learn to make crafts out of the recycled materials that we can potentially sell at our fund raisers.
We also have psychologists that are working with the children and staff to develop/improve behaviors and provide the children the emotional management tools needed to succeed outside of RISE. Physical Education remains part of the daily routine – 2 hours a day. It is a great way to keep the kids active and healthy.
As you may recall, the last couple of years the children of RISE were attending 3 different schools, based on learning abilities. We were very pleased to be able to provide appropriate options for their varying needs. Two of the schools were private schools and one was a public school.
Going forward, it is unclear if/which schools will remain in operations for the 2020/2021 school year. COVID19 has heavily impacted the PV community financially and Professor Jorge and his team are working hard at evaluating alternative schools, if the need arises.
Health
Dr. Enrique continues to tend to our children daily. Recently, he had blood and urine tests performed to ensure we had updated medical data on all the children. This is in addition to monitoring height, weight and temperature regularly. We did have some medical excitement in April, with an appendectomy for one of the children. He was very brave and able to get to the hospital quickly when symptoms appeared. He had wonderful medical care and was back playing sports before we knew it.
Dental care has been maintained with braces, fillings, and cleanings – a big thank you to one of our generous donors for taking care of their dental needs. We are planning optical exams at COSTCO for the children this summer. Always a challenge to teach children how to care for glasses, but it is part of the continuous efforts in teaching children responsibility.
Volunteers
As COVID19 came, most of our volunteers headed back to their homes up North and those locally based were asked to take a pause to ensure RISE was kept safe. We have one volunteer who is persevering through COVID19, Stew, who stepped up to be an essential worker to keep things running. We are grateful that he goes to the shelter regularly to ensure everything is operational – replacing fans, fixing leaks, electrical outages, etc. Thank you Stew for your dedication.
Memo and I also meet up with Stew and Ramiro (chauffeur) on Saturdays to unload the COSTCO donations, prep and rotate food and organize the pantry and walk-in refrigerator. We also recently restarted the English program for the nursery children 2 afternoons a week – we wear full gear to protect the children, staff, and ourselves.
We will be reviewing how the volunteer program will take shape in this new pandemic world. Feel free to contact me at Lisa(at)risepv.com with your thoughts.
Fundraising
We are pleased to announce that the ‘Round Up’ fundraising program at OXXO, which ran from Jan – Mar, was not all lost during the pandemic. OXXO was one of the few stores that remained open and Eduardo Rincon-Gallardo and Padre Luis were granted a generous check on June 5th that will help with some of our operational costs! Thank you to OXXO for supporting RISE! Below are some of the ‘Thank You’ gifts the children made for the cashiers.
Fundraising going forward is likely to look different. Large group gatherings will be difficult to conduct and we are not clear on how many tourists will be returning for the season given the unpredictability of COVID19. We are in a bit of a quandary for planning. We are looking into online auctions and events, but would appreciate your feedback on this topic. Please Click HERE to complete a quick survey to provide your input on fundraising this season.
For our online auction we already have an artist and volunteer, Barbara Angulo, who has donated these beautiful Butterfly Skulls symbolizing Breast Cancer Awareness (pink); Those who fight against COVID19 (blue); Butterfly Migration in Mexico (green/orange) and A Life Well-Lived (gold). Here is a sneak peek. If you are interested, contact me at Lisa(at)risepv.com. Starting bid $40 USD.
We continue to keep RISE on the RISE! Muchas Gracias and blessings from all of us at RISE for your continued support.
The Refugio Infantil Santa Esperanza is a non-profit shelter for babies and children under the age of 14. Some of these children are orphans but most come from unbearable situations having been abused, neglected, or simply abandoned. R.I.S.E. is a 501(c)3 charitable organization, EIN (52)2442583. All contributions are tax deductible. More information about the shelter and how you can help can be found at RisePV.com.