Community Service Day with Tamarindo Surf

A little late on the update, but we wanted to share all the same since we just received the pictures.

On July 5th Abriendo Mentes teamed with Tamarindo Surf school - http://www.tamarindosurfschool.com/ - in Tamarindo to bring a group of teenagers from across the US to Potrero for a service day. They came, they ate, they taught and they played.

This was a neat group of teenagers; unlike some of their peers who would have signed up for the CR surf tour summer camp, they signed up for the package that included community service and Spanish lessons (with a little bit of surfing too). But honestly, I bet the time they spent with the AM students was equally as rewarding as surfing was.

This 4-hour long activity was kicked off with a picnic prepared by AM student moms, followed by English classes, songs, games, arts and soccer. It was a wonderful way to close out the first half of the 2010 year before vacation.

The following day, the same group reconvened in the Salon Comunal to give a face-lift to the trashcans in Potrero with an environmental theme.

Classes are back in action now, we will have an update soon of current happenings. But with 6 volunteers currently in Potrero and 5 planning to come over the next 3 months, we should be in store for some great activities and progress.

Pen pals in Potrero

Do you remember having pen pals as a child? You wrote back and forth through old fashioned snail mail; sometimes you sent each other pencils or little treats. I had a pen pal in Latvia (of all places!). I waited with bated breath for my friend to send me letters in her perfect handwriting and perfect English (I was not at the time studying Latvian).

So now imagine that you are an 11 year old girl, born and raised in a little village on the Guanacaste coast of Costa Rica, having barely ever left your small 300 person town. And you have a pen pal from the US who emails letters to you which you receive in Abriendo Mentes class AND you find out that your pen pal is coming to visit you in Potrero. Imagine what a cool feeling that must be for a young child that rarely ventures out of town

After 2 – 3 months of exchanging letters, on July 1^st 4 pen pals from across the US came to visit 4 Abriendo Mentes students in Potrero. This is a wonderful cross-cultural program organized by Thompson Family Adventures and Unique Adventure Costa Rica. Abriendo Mentes is fortunate enough to be in collaboration with Unique Adventures who (with Thompson Family) matches up students in the US with AM students. Unique Adventures CR is a company that specializes in travels through Costa Rica that emphasize the natural beauty and resources of Costa Rica and personal interaction with the culture and people.

We worked with these organizations to plan an afternoon activity for the visiting families and the AM students. The pen pals came to the [newly painted] community center to meet their Costa Rican friends. They interacted through a “get to know you” worksheet which was in both English and Spanish, and then bonded over ice cream and a game of what could only be called indoor soccer, sans rules.

It was a great day for the families, and both sets of pen pals. We truly hope that we can continue and expand this program and match each of our students with a pen pal in the future. Who knows, maybe little Jenifer will go to North Carolina one day to visit her pen pal Rylan! Vamos a ver.

June 30th 2010 - Farewell Kate and Todd!

As a tribute to our dedicated Abriendo Mentes volunteers Kate and Todd, on their last day of classes we planned a carnival for the A.M. students!

When Kate brought up the idea of a carnival, we were thrilled! We got a little carried away (dunk tank? Where can we find one of those in Guanacaste?), but Drew and Todd brought us back to reality (no pie toss girls).

The carnival was our way of sharing the celebration of U.S. Independence Day with the students, as well as an opportunity to involve them in all the awesome carnival games we knew as kids.

We had everything from pin the tail on the donkey, to water balloon toss, to a make shift cake walk (brownie and rice krispy treat walk) to go fishing! It was a huge success. We all ate, played games, won prizes and learned about U.S. Independence.

Once again a huge "Thank you" to all of our wonderful volunteers from the month of June, Kate and Todd from Michigan, Mary and Sarina from Florida and Caroline from Massachusetts. You will all be missed!

Foot note: I can confidently say that this was the most organized balloon toss anyone could have executed in Potrero - ever.

Video of Painting the Community Center in Playa Potrero

A huge thank you to Kate and Todd, two Abriendo Mentes volunteers who traveled all the way from Michigan to dedicate a month to helping the children in Playa Potrero. Kate and Todd made this great time lapse video of the transformation of the Salon Comunal. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KibhNuyTvo4&feature=email

Painting the Salon Comunal!

On Thursday, June 24, over 40 volunteers and community members came together to paint the Playa Potrero Community Center. All together, there were 10 Abriendo Mentes team members and A.M. volunteers from Massachusetts, Florida, and Michigan, a tour group of 10 arranged through M.I.T., and over 20 Playa Potrero community members and Abriendo Mentes students. It was a long day of hard work, but very rewarding to see such a huge improvement. We still can’t put into words how thrilled we are that we have finally accomplished one of our main goals for the 2010 Abriendo Mentes year!

The day started at 7am, with only a few setbacks ("how do we open these 5 gallon paint buckets?" and "hmm... stirring paint, didn't realize how important that part was"). But by 8am we were spread around the Salon, everyone with a brush, roller or sponge, paint tray or make shift paint tray in hand. I think I often underestimate how simple concept of team work is, but how it can have such a grand impact. The synergy created between 40+ people working together was amazing. In less than one hour, we had covered over 400 square feet of wall space. As the day continued on, the work pace slowed a bit for practical reasons. We were getting tired, it was getting hot(ter), and we had covered the bottom section of the Salon, leaving the top beams, which were only accessible by ladder. Making it even more challenging, these hard to reach beams were un-treated concrete, which sucked up paint and made for a very tired arm. 8am turned to noon, when our wonderful M.I.T volunteers had to head back to Flamingo for lunch (thank you so much to all of you!!). We powered on from noon until after 5pm, through A.M. classes which we took turns teaching between painting stints. Final touches were finished on Friday and then we celebrated. Now, thanks to the great effort of 40 dedicated, giving people, the town has a fresh, newly painted community center! We cannot thank everyone enough for their generous gift of time and hard work. I stepped back and took a look at the masterpiece at the end of the day on Friday, and tears came to my eyes. This was partially because I was very tired, but mostly because I was thinking of the diverse group of people who joined together to accomplish such a daunting task. Everyone from a middle-aged Nicaraguan immigrant women, a wonderful Costa Rican mother and her 6 year old son, a mid-20's couple from Michigan, devoting two months of their summer to service work in Costa Rica, a mid-30's Geology Professor at M.I.T and a mother and daughter from Tampa, Florida. This was a group who realized that a dedicated team of people working hard together can accomplish great things. I know they will spread this sentiment throughout their travels and experiences; everyone can make an impact, and every effort counts. Muchisimas Gracias!

Abriendo Mentes Goal of 3

3 goals, 3 months, 103 women and children in Playa Potrero need our help.

With 1/3 of the 2010 Abriendo Mentes year successfully completed, we are happy to announce we have officially been accepted as a partner for fiscal sponsorship with the 501 (c)(3) Omprakash Foundation. With this milestone reached, we have set 3 main goals that we are dedicated to accomplishing in the next 3 months.

This is our goal of 3:

• Student material packets
• Improvements to community teaching space
  
• Experiential learning excursions
  

300 people, $10 each, 103 lives touched.

You can help change the future of 103 women and children in Playa Potrero. If 300 people contribute $10 each, we will be able to successfully reach our 3 goals in the next 3 months.

Your $10 will....

• Help us deliver 33 more student packets to the 33 children still lacking basic classroom materials.

• Help fund the improvement of the community center/Abriendo Mentes teaching space in Potrero: cleaning, painting, stuccoing, and closing up the large open windows to keep leaves and dust out.
  

• Help send the students on 3 experiential learning field trips throughout the next year - hike on a volcano and learn about geothermal energy, experience a jungle canopy tour and learn about rain forest conservation and visit a leather back sea turtle nesting site and learn about endangered species.
  

Please forward this information to anyone you think would be interested in helping Abriendo Mentes and the women and children of Playa Potrero.

Want to get to know us better? Take a look at Abriendo Mentes' new "Learn More" tab where you will find testimonials, news and events, student of the week and more.

Friday fiesta day!

This past Friday, we enjoyed a fun afternoon making tissue paper flowers with pipe cleaners and wooden skewers, practicing our colors while working, and as a special treat a piñata to top off the day! We have our new friends Samantha, Trinidad and Paula to thank for providing the supplies, ideas, piñata and candy for the activity. Samantha (7) and Trinidad (5) are traveling through Latin America with their parents and joined us for two weeks in Abriendo Mentes classes. They brought with them new songs, activities and a lesson on Chile to add to the Abriendo Mentes curriculum. Samantha and Trinidad participated in all the regular A.M. Kinder and 1st grade class activities, and even wrote pen pal letters with us to our friends at Esperanza de Cambio in Peru. The A.M. students really enjoyed getting to know two new friends from the US and it was a great opportunity for all the children to interact with a different culture. It was a new opportunity and a wonderful way to continue opening minds.