Book Sale Update and Farewell from Julie Mendez

Just as a quick update - through our last fundraising efforts, we were able to collect over 100 books to the Montessori Preschool in La Pintana (105 to be exact!). I was also able to drop off another full car load of outdoor play toys and a ton of extra tarp for their outdoor areas for the summer. Thanks for all of your hard work and for your donations!

I personally want to send you all a wonderful huge thank you to everyone one of you who have helped out so much with the Montessori Preschool in La Pintana over the past two years. I have really loved getting to know everyone through working with this school. You have all made such a difference in the lives of the children there. The administrators have asked me to pass along their thankyous as well!

I am leaving post, but the school could still use some help! Donations of toys for the classrooms and for the playground, volunteering your efforts with their grounds, helping raise funds for classroom materials or library books, are just a few ideas. There is always something more to do!

If you would like to get involved, please contact one of the other volunteers, or the CLOs who have contact information for those in the group. Please feel free to contact me with questions if you would like.

Thank you all again!

Julie Mendez

Book Club Update

I just want to thank you all so much for all your orders! (Especially a super big thank you to Dawn, who took over running the project!) So far we have a total of 90 books that will be donated to the La Pintana Montessori preschool! What an excellent beginning for a school library!

We are still collecting Spanish-language books to be donated. All that we ask is that they be age appropriate (ages 0-6) and in Spanish. If you would like to donate books so that we can increase our book total for the school, please contact JMSjulie@aol.com.

PS. We have some bookcases that some folks are willing to donate, but right now I am looking for someone with a truck who might be willing to pick them up for us and deliver them to the school. If you know of anyone, please let me know.

Update on Plant Fundraiser for the Montessori Preschool

Thank you to everyone who sponsored a plant, bought cupcakes or baked goods (or donated the baked goods) at the Embassy yard sale, or donated plants, pots, or other gardening items to the Montessori Preschool in La Pintana. And a very special thank you to Barbara for taking charge of this project and making it happen! Here are a few pictures of what was donated, and the children enjoying their new plants!

Upcoming Project Plans

We have several large projects that we are going to delve into in the next few months, and we could use your help!

1. Earth Day - Buy a Plant for the School Plus Bake Sale!

In honor of Earth Day (on April 22nd), we will be creating a Plant Sale/Bake Sale fundraiser at the US Embassy in Santiago on Friday, April 23rd. The purpose of this project is to purchase plants for the school's grounds. Employees will be able to purchase a "card," which will represent the plant we will purchase in their name - a tree, a shrub, a flowering plant, etc. At the same time, we will have a bake sale to raise additional funds for the school.

In addition, we are also going to accept donations of potted plants (those that are moving this summer might appreciate this), and excess "planting items" like empty pots, extra potting soil, etc. These will be donated to the school to go along with our Earth Day theme.

Also, the school administrator really wants to create a vegetable garden. This will allow the children to learn about growing plants, as well as provide a new resource of fresh vegetables for the school's kitchen. We hope to purchase seeds for the garden so that the children may plant them themselves.

2. Book Drive - We are in the process of setting up a "Scholastic Book Club" at the US Embassy in Santiago (for US Direct Hire personnel only, unfortunately). Our hope is that we will be able to raise enough funds to create a library for the school. The school has almost no books. The few books the school has are not in Spanish. The school really needs age-appropriate books in Spanish.

3. Artwork for the Classrooms -

The classrooms walls are bare and the administrators have begged us to help decorate the classrooms.

We will be collecting several items to help us create pictures or collages for the classrooms. We will also be collecting picture frames to frame these pictures so that the artwork will last longer and look nicer in the classrooms. All extra items we receive will be donated to the school to use themselves, either to create their own artwork for the walls, or perhaps for the children to cut up and use in their art projects.

Magazines will be very useful with this project, as well as old calendars. Child/family magazines, National Geographic or other travel magazines, or any photo-based magazines will be useful.

We also hope to speak to the local international high school and see if their IB art student would be interested in creating artwork for the school.

4. Donations -

The school would be thrilled to accept any and all toy donations. Even though have received a huge amount in the past, the toys have started to wear out after 300 children playing with them each year. We plan to create a drop off/pick up schedule right before our next trip to the school in order to lesson the burden on our volunteers' storage areas.

To give you some ideas of what toys are most useful at the school, here are a few suggestions: outdoor play equipment of any kind, play kitchens or baby doll beds, baby dolls (plastic is preferred, and please no stuffed animals.). Trucks, cars, wooden blocks, plastic animals, or farm-type toys are also very popular with the boys in the rooms. Dress-up clothes, puzzles, as well as other educational-based or imaginative-play based toys would be appreciated as well.

5. Miscellaneous Needs -

Coat racks are needed for each of the eleven classrooms for the children to hang up their bags and coats.

Area rugs are desperately needed. The floors will be extremely chilly for the children as the winter season begins. Carpet squares are appreciated as well.

"Cubbys" would also be very useful in the classrooms to both organize classroom materials and the children's personal items.

Small "dinner trays" are very useful for the teachers to organize the children's individual projects.

Huge plastic garbage cans are always in demand, as the school's are often stolen when put out for the garbage trucks at night.

Art supplies are always appreciated, the children really seem to love doing crafts and art projects.

Thanks so much for all of your assistance! If you have any questions, please contact Julie Mendez at JMSjulie@aol.com.

April Visit

Below are pictures from our visit today to the La Pintana Preschool.

We had a wonderful visit to the school. Just when I thought that perhaps they didn't need us anymore, wow, did they pop up with a lot of ideas and needs. There are a ton of additional needs at the school for us to work on.

The next blog post will detail our upcoming plans for the school.

March Update and Announcement of Next Planning Meeting

If you are local to Santiago, you are invited to join us as we prepare for our next round of projects to help the Montessori Preschool in La Pintana. All are welcome to attend!

We are organizing an upcoming trip to tour the school. Please let me know if you would like to join us so I can plan for our carpool. (The total trip would be approximately three hours - we would leave no later than 9am to make sure we are back in time for everyone to do pickups at preschool if needed.)

The following day we will be meeting for coffee at 10am. Feel free to come regardless if you are able to join us for the "field trip" the day before. This will be a brainstorming/planning session. I really do hope you will all attend; we could used all the help we can get!

CURRENT NEEDS

a. Writer - Can anyone take charge of this project? No specific grant writing experience required, just good writing skills. The deadline is MARCH 1, 2010 and I really need help. PLEASE HELP!

b. Anyone with landscaping experience or good with gardening, etc? We could also use some advice in this area - for our school grounds project.

Please contact us if you have any questions.