Members: Dr. Gordon Comstock, Ginger Comstock, Judy Toner, Richard Van Amburg, Richard DeNise, Douglas Young, David B. Makepeace, David W. Makepeace, Rev. Brian Krause.
Secondary objectives included establishing an arrangement with Yovany that would enable us to open a dollar account in Honduras and account for NY/HELP monies sent to Honduras in a professional manner as well as facilitate the payment of local salaries and payment for and delivery of medicines.
We are pleased to report that, due to organization prior to the trip, the professionalism of Yovany and Sustainable Harvest and a cooperative effort once the group arrived, all objectives were met.
David W. Makepeace, Doug Young and Rich Van Amburg were dropped in La Fortuna where they were met by locals who set us up in the local school to sleep on the concrete floor and established a rotation of cooks to feed us. The people were very accommodating and many children and adults stayed around or met us after work to watch us and to keep us company. We felt safe and well cared for the whole time.
Over the next four days we works with Elio, a local carpenter to construct six latrines. Thanks to the efforts of Yovany Munguía of Sustainable Harvest, all materials were in place for the works and we accomplished to objective in less time than anticipated, which allowed us to move to El Calichal to help in that effort.
Doug and Rich were first timers, and both enjoyed the trip immensely and left feeling very well utilized and positive about the efforts of NY/HELP in the region.
David arrived with a lengthy agenda regarding the boarding house from Education coordinator, Jeff Mason. This included getting a list of students currently in our boarding house in Yoro, visiting the local colegio (Jr. H.S.) and the CEVER vocational school in support of our students and the tracking down of parents and paying of scholarships promised in October. This agenda was increased with the news that a colegio has been formed in the village of Mataderos (in the tribal region where we do our work). This colegio will take some pressure off our boarding house by educating local students who we could never hope to accommodate in the house in Yoro. We conducted a meeting with tribal leaders at a home in La Laguna (Ada's house) where we were presented with with a request to purchase furniture for the colegio and to help in the construction of a new school building.
Before leaving the region, a group of us visited the colegio in Yoro and met our boarding
house students in their classes and talked to the classes. Afterwards, we taxied to CEVER and
were warmly received as usual by the director and were able to see two of our four students there.
Scholarships:
" Wendy Garmendia Castro 1075 lps.Issues:
" Petronida would like a raise and would like some help for her daughter Eva.
As usual, we arranged the mid-visit soccer games. This year's venue was El Calichal and
four teams participated, La Laguna, El Calichal, El Paraiso and Mataderos. Trophies and prize
money were provided by Sustainable Harvest and NY/Help. David B. Makepeace did a great job
refereeing the matches after Rigoberto was practically run out of town. He did a remarkable job,
and all applauded after the matches, two of which ended in shoot-outs. El Paraiso took first place
followed by El Calichal, La Laguna and Mataderos. Everyone had a marvelous time, and all went
back to work the following day.
Income: (all figures in US dollars at an average exchange rate of 18.6 lps. / dollar)
" UCC - Honeoye contributions 1652.00
" Group money 1620.00
Expenses:
" Stoves 500.00
o Materials Original proposal 850.00
o More wire 56.70
" Open Bank account 710.00
" Yovany's first month salary 60.00
" Chairs for new colegio 450.00
" Education expenses 215.69
" Soccer prizes 40.00
" Buying dolls 146.00
" Group expenses 770.75
" Exit fees (7 people) 238.00
Total 4037.14