May Update

We would like to thank everyone who has donated toys and other items to the Montessori Preschool, El Roble La Pintana. We can attest that your donations have been distributed throughout the school and are being put to good use by all of the children!

Recently a group of volunteers went back with yet another full SUV load of toys, books and more for the school. We were able to view the great progress the school has made since opening in September.

The school is bustling with activity and great efforts are being made through community outreach programs at the school. A local health center inoculated all the children the week before we visited, and other health initiatives are planned in the future. The parents are organizing themselves and getting more involved. Some basic landscaping has been completed, including a tree planting ceremony with the Mapuche tribe, in an effort to teach the children about respecting their environment. The school has even lengthened their hours to last until 7pm, to accommodate the many working parents. The atmosphere is very enthusiastic and eager to continue these developments!

But, of course there are still great needs at the school.

Our next major project for the school will be to purchase material for curtains for every classroom. Currently there are none, and the hope is that these curtains will not only add some color to the rooms, but also conserve heat. If you would like to “adopt a room” for this initiative or otherwise donate any amount of money towards this project, it would be much appreciated.

Outside, we would like to assist them with their landscaping efforts. The school would like to create walking paths in the gardens and plant additional plants next spring. For this we will need to purchase gravel and larger edging rocks. They are also looking for six simple awnings to put outside each of the older children’s classrooms, providing the children some much needed shade to play in during the summer heat. We are hoping to find and purchase these awnings now off-season, hopefully finding a better price.

The school is also in need of a few changing table pads for the changing room for babies, rugs for the floors in the classrooms of the older children, and a laminating machine. They plan to use the laminating machine to create their own education materials (such as flashcards, etc). Several of our volunteers are planning other education materials projects that we can create to assist each classroom as well.

If you happen to be leaving this transfer season, we continue to accept donations of toys in good condition with “educational play value”, picture books (and would LOVE any books in Spanish), dress-up clothes, puzzles, you name it. The children in this school range from ages 0-6.

If you would like to get even more involved – by collecting donations, doing a little bit of labor, or helping us run down the best deals on particular products, we’d appreciate it. Or if one of the above projects interest you and you’d like to take charge in that area, we’d love your participation.

And as you can see, we’re not lacking ideas – just funds! If you have any ideas on ideas for fundraising or would like to donate to our efforts, please contact Julie Mendez at JMSjulie@aol.com for more information.