Our Visit to the School

Today we went on our first trip to the school. We took a full van load of donated toys and items to the school. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far!

Some of the Donations as We Unloaded the Van

Here are a few pictures of the school. As you can tell, it's brand new, and has still has that "fresh paint" feel to it.

These pictures are of their interior courtyard that they use for their playground. Notice how empty it is!

The grounds are also in bad shape, covered with large weeds and rocks. The kids were playing in this area when we arrived. While we were touring the rest of the school, a group of volunteer parents, armed with shovels, began working on part of the grounds to prepare it for planting.

Here are a couple pictures of one of the classrooms - what I believe was the 2 year old class. The children were all very well behaved and seemed to be having a good time.

None of the rooms had their shelves installed yet. The school adminstrator said these were still being built.

Most rooms were very bare. One of the older classrooms (3 or 4 year olds) literally had tables and chairs and nothing else. The teachers were working with the bare minimum of materials.

We toured the school, asked the adminstrators tons of questions, and brainstormed many things we could do for the school. Among the ideas were to help them landscape their grounds and make them safe and child-friendly; get plastic playground equipment for their courtyard; paint murals on the walls in the hallways; purchase "water tables" for the classrooms; and create activity centers in each of the classrooms.

The Group of Ladies that Toured the School