- Thread starter LindseyKaufman
- Start date
No shame
This is fantastic!!! I received messages that other monetary donations have been made via our website. I cannot yet write thank you’s because our treasurer is on a week’s vacation in Aruba and she receives the donation notices. She will be back late Sunday night, so for those of you who contributed, Thank you and I will write to you again next week to confirm your donation.
We currently have more kids coming to roller skate than we have skates available, so if anyone else wants to help make this activity a true success you can help out via our website. Just hit the donation button.
Strength for the Journeyhttp://www.sftjourney.org
We will be repeating the skating nights every two weeks and will post photos.
Again, thank you!!!
We currently have more kids coming to roller skate than we have skates available, so if anyone else wants to help make this activity a true success you can help out via our website. Just hit the donation button.
Strength for the Journeyhttp://www.sftjourney.org
We will be repeating the skating nights every two weeks and will post photos.
Again, thank you!!!
The dr1 community is simply the best! We received a total of US $2,135 for roller skates! Not all contributions came from this community, but many did. and some were quite generous! Thank you from Strength for the Journey, from all the children in Jamao, and from me personally. I could not accomplish what I do without you!
Tomorrow, we will be holding another skate night. Hopefully there are luz, so we can play the skating music and use the disco light we purchased for this event. Again, our teen leaders will be checking in kids, sizing them for skates, and helping out non-skaters on the skate floor. We did receive some larger skate sizes so after the children finish and prior to clean up, they will have their time to skate.
I will be sure to post photos for you to see.
The plan is this. After tomorrow evening's activities, I will take a count of what sizes we are missing and begin the ordering process. I am doing a combination of having friends purchase 2 pairs of skates for me to send to their freight forwarder for here, having donors send skates to Alter Ego to travel here in the barrel she is packing, and purchasing skates to send to my mudanza in New York. I have a credit with them. This way, I am minimizing transportation and customs costs and making the most of your contributions.
I have almost all the email addresses for donors and I will write personally to each of you. However there were a couple that arrived without email addresses, funds being sent as a check from a bank. If you were one of these donors, please accept my heartfelt thanks!
YOU are Strength for the Journey!
Tomorrow, we will be holding another skate night. Hopefully there are luz, so we can play the skating music and use the disco light we purchased for this event. Again, our teen leaders will be checking in kids, sizing them for skates, and helping out non-skaters on the skate floor. We did receive some larger skate sizes so after the children finish and prior to clean up, they will have their time to skate.
I will be sure to post photos for you to see.
The plan is this. After tomorrow evening's activities, I will take a count of what sizes we are missing and begin the ordering process. I am doing a combination of having friends purchase 2 pairs of skates for me to send to their freight forwarder for here, having donors send skates to Alter Ego to travel here in the barrel she is packing, and purchasing skates to send to my mudanza in New York. I have a credit with them. This way, I am minimizing transportation and customs costs and making the most of your contributions.
I have almost all the email addresses for donors and I will write personally to each of you. However there were a couple that arrived without email addresses, funds being sent as a check from a bank. If you were one of these donors, please accept my heartfelt thanks!
YOU are Strength for the Journey!
Oh, what a night it was! Our second skate night. We had 22 pairs of skates and planned two sessions, but crowds of people arrived, and of course, they could not make a nice line to register. As you know, Dominicans are pros at making havoc with the best organization. We ended up with three sessions to accommodate all children, and that was with turning kids away who arrived without parents to register them and those without socks.
They were supposed to skate in a circle but because most could hardly stand up, that was beyond expectations.
Our teen leaders were responsible for fitting kids with skates. As teens go, they arrived extremely excited and (too) high energy. We had them separate the skates by sizes and wrote each child's size on his/her wrist band. But our American volunteer was hysterical with frustration as she discovered kids wearing two left or two right skates, and other kids wearing one small and one medium skate.
Somehow, in the end, it all worked out. The local vendors sold lots of empanadas, quippes, salchichas, and juice. The first and second session families stayed to the end to watch all kids skate. The disco lights were a huge hit. And nobody complained about the 80's roller skate music.
We had a meeting with our leaders at the end to let them know changes they must make for next time. And then they got to skate and we all laughed hilariously as these big lugs got up and fell down on the floor over and over again, often crashing into one another.
Best part (almost), this no tme, no drunks from the park crashed the party.
We will continue using your donated funds to purchase the skate sizes most in demand until all funds are used and we can accommodate all children.
Again, thanks for the support and help with donations. You gave such good, clean fun to so many!
They were supposed to skate in a circle but because most could hardly stand up, that was beyond expectations.
Our teen leaders were responsible for fitting kids with skates. As teens go, they arrived extremely excited and (too) high energy. We had them separate the skates by sizes and wrote each child's size on his/her wrist band. But our American volunteer was hysterical with frustration as she discovered kids wearing two left or two right skates, and other kids wearing one small and one medium skate.
Somehow, in the end, it all worked out. The local vendors sold lots of empanadas, quippes, salchichas, and juice. The first and second session families stayed to the end to watch all kids skate. The disco lights were a huge hit. And nobody complained about the 80's roller skate music.
We had a meeting with our leaders at the end to let them know changes they must make for next time. And then they got to skate and we all laughed hilariously as these big lugs got up and fell down on the floor over and over again, often crashing into one another.
Best part (almost), this no tme, no drunks from the park crashed the party.
We will continue using your donated funds to purchase the skate sizes most in demand until all funds are used and we can accommodate all children.
Again, thanks for the support and help with donations. You gave such good, clean fun to so many!
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I will bet $10 you Lindsey had the most fun of all!
Actually it was exhausting, but extremely gratifying to see the children and families enjoying the activity and heartwarming to know it was made possible due to the support from so many.
I've done similar things with various Haitians. I so enjoy watching them take something in for the first time, something they never dreamed was obtainable on their own.