Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – Charity begins at home. Your home can help provide free surgery to a child. It can help a child avoid being swept up in prostitution. It can help them go to school, stay in school and dream big. Your home can be the key to changing lives – for the better.
You can do a little bit of good. And it is so easy!
Good things can happen if you open your home for just 30 minutes, three or four times a season, to the International Friendship Club’s (IFC’s) Home Tours.
What’s a Home Tour? Where does the money go? How can I help? All good questions!
The IFC Home Tours take interested people to interesting homes on Tuesday mornings, between December and mid-April. Each tour visits three or four homes that have been selected for a unique characteristic that makes them stand out. Maybe it’s perched on the shore with a stunning view of the ocean. It might be nestled in a walled garden, downtown or, perhaps, the home has fountains, pools and waterfalls. All homes have the common thread that the owners care about the community and want to help. By opening their hearts and homes, the homeowners help the children of Puerto Vallarta.
Where does the money go? All proceeds from the Home Tours (tickets are $1,000 Pesos) are used to fund free surgery and ongoing care for children born with cleft palates. Since it started 37 years ago, the program has helped hundreds of children live everyday lives.
IFC also supports charities, including two orphanages, a rehabilitation clinic, an after-school educational program, families with children with cancer and two community music programs. None of this help to the children would be possible without our generous homeowners.
“How can I help?” IFC would love to show your property on the IFC Home Tour if you have a home that you think other people would find interesting. We will work hard to make it as easy as possible for you. We would be pleased to work with you on a schedule that fits your needs. Our volunteers work with you or your staff to schedule the best time to show the home and open it for our arrival.
We generally have between 30 and 50 guests on the tours, and we spend about 20-30 minutes visiting each home between 10:30 am and 1:00 pm. Our home scheduler, Gisele Quain, will give you a more accurate arrival time when all four homes for the week have been scheduled.
Trained guides and docents are on every tour to ensure all goes well in your home. We do not allow any food or drinks in the homes nor permit our guests to sit on your furniture.
Due to COVID, we have put additional safeguards in place. These protocols, which apply to all guests and IFC volunteers, are in place for all of this season. They are:
- Everyone must provide proof of vaccination.
- The buses will be loaded at approximately half capacity to allow social distancing.
- All guests will be wearing masks at all times.
Homeowners are the lifeblood of the Home Tours and the tours, in turn, provide the money for medical care and better education for the children of Puerto Vallarta.
In this third year of Covid, the International Friendship Club has been dramatically impacted, like many other individuals, families, and businesses. Our Home Tour guests are still interested in buying tickets, but our inventory of homes to show them has been eroded, and we need your help to build it back up again.
If you own, or know someone who owns, a casita, condo, villa, penthouse, tree-house or yurt, which you think other people would like to tour for 30 minutes or so, please get in touch with IFC’s Gisele Quain at giselequain.ifc.hometours(at)gmail.com.
Gisele will be pleased to answer any questions or concerns that you might have. Then she, or someone on her team, will visit the home and confirm arrangements.
IFC and the kids of Vallarta will appreciate your help.
Desmond Tutu died recently. One of his sayings applies to IFC’s request for your help. He said, “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s all those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
Please contact IFC’s Gisele Quain at giselequain.ifc.hometours(at)gmail.com. and do your little bit of good.
Written by John Warren of the International Friendship Club.
The International Friendship Club is a registered charitable organization in Mexico listed as Club Internacional de la Amistad de Puerto Vallarta A.C. It is located at the northeast corner of the Rio Cuale Bridge above the HSBC Bank, Colonia El Centro, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, 48300. Phone: 322-222-5466. Website: ifcvallarta.org Email: info(at)ifcvallarta.org
