Email: mjellis@prodigy.net.mx

In early October, we committed funds to renovate three washrooms in Centro de Educación Especial (a school for children with Downs Syndrome & other learning disabilities) in Col. Valentín Gómez Farias when the new Director of Education - Prof. Carlos Murguía - asked us to evaluate how the Club could work with his department to improve the situation at the school. The school is 22 years old, has 80 students, six teachers and the use of a doctor’s time. There are five classrooms, an office, two seven year-old partially constructed classrooms & four partly constructed small rooms and a good playground in need of equipment. The city had not for many years considered the school a funding priority but this year, because of the continuing deterioration of the facilities, the Department of Education committed to the parents that if they could find someone to fund the labour the City would supply the materials. This project provides the Club with an opportunity to participate in a program which is contributing, not only to the well-being of the students, but also to the local community and to the very poor parents of these handicapped children.

While there are several projects that could be undertaken at the school, we concluded that Director Salvador Luna’s plea for the immediate renovation of the washrooms was the most appropriate course of action for us to pursue. Therefore, we are funding the labour cost of $38 thousand pesos while the City is providing all materials required. Currently, construction is 50% complete and everything should be completed by Christmas.

In November, we agreed to fund 10% of the $382 thousand peso cost of a fence around the very large primary school in La Cruz. It has a student body approaching 300. The state of Nayarit is building the much-needed fence on condition that the Parents Association provide 20% of the cost. We have worked with this association on several projects over the years but we had deferred involvement in this particular project until the Association could locate other sources of funding. Our contribution is reducing the assessment on the impoverished parents by 50% and is in line with what we felt we would have contributed two years ago.

When, at the request of the Parent’s Association, we were visiting a secondary school in La Cruz, we found their washrooms are in deplorable condition. The school has 110 students and continues to grow rapidly. We have committed $25 thousand pesos to purchase the necessary materials and the Director is arranging for the parents with plumbing and bricklaying skills to provide the labour.

As outlined above, we have received several requests for funding support for bay-area schools and have committed all of the budgeted funding allotted for small construction projects in the current fiscal year. We anticipate receiving more requests from the Department of Education, local schools and/or parents associations over the next three to four months. If we determine the proposals are within our budget and cost sharing guidelines, if the projects can or should be completed before the end of the school year and most importantly, if the Club is able to provide additional funding, we may seek some supplemental funding from the Board of Directors. Otherwise these projects will be deferred until the beginning of the next fiscal year, June 1, 2002 when new funding will be available.

I have tendered my resignation as Chairman of the Education Committee in order to dedicate more time to other community based projects. I have enjoyed the past three and half years as Chairman of the Education Committee, working with my Committee colleagues, in particular Tom Wichie & Dick Dobbeck, with my counterparts on the Health and Community Service Committees Patricia Mendez & Mayra Fumerton, with Past Presidents Norm Yellowlees and Jack Willis and with current President Gale Hankel. The support for our group from successive Boards and their individual members has been outstanding. I, most of all, appreciate not only newfound friendships of Club members but those of the hard working, dedicated officials of the Mexican Departments of Education, of the very caring, devoted members of the scores of Parents Associations and of those magnificent teachers.

Que le vaya bien.

Medical Library Project   Member Robert Hume collected $2,700 USD through various programs to have 9 medical journals sent monthly to the doctor’s library at the Regional Hospital. He also arranged for the delivery of 7 boxes of medical books donated from the Washoe Medical Library at the Washoe Medical Center in Reno, NV. If there are any physicians or members interested in participating in this ongoing project of stocking the medical library at the Regional Hospital, please contact Robert Hume, at 222-3878 e-mail: fhume@aol.com