Vintage

Angela Rossi and I just returned from an amazing trip to Nicaragua. It is very hard to get back into the swing of things here in the States after visiting such a place as the Limon community.
Our first day consisted of meeting with Americans Marc Brown and his wife Kathy. They moved their beautiful family to the Rancho Santana neighborhood a couple of years ago and haven't left. Marc was gracious enough to initiate communication with  two schools in Limon and educated them on who we are and what our mission is. I have met with schools before in this type of environment and was somewhat concerned going in. My concerns were that the students would not be in school or that the school staff wouldn’t be willing to allow us to come in to take photos and spend time with the kids. Marc assured me that this was a very special community and that all would be fine.

The next day, we headed over to meet Marc. Of course, we got lost and found many more communities with the same needs. This is when we realized that this area was perfect for CAF. This area in Nicaragua seems to be one that we can grow with. With many developments going up we felt that these communities could benefit from receiving a better education and assisted direction in acquiring arts & crafts skills to sell along the way.

We finally found Marc :) and headed over to the first school called Limon 1.  I was completely blown away with the enthusiasm, friendliness and organization and all my worries disappeared. Immediately, the kids said “hello” in a sort of singing tune and the photo shoot began. Angela and I couldn't stop! It was so fun to take pictures and share them with the kids through the viewfinder on the other side of the camera. While all of this is going on, Marc was tending to the teacher who had done so much homework! She had prepared a list of names of those who absolutely needed uniforms with all their sizes, etc. She said that they have about 100 more kids, but that their uniforms were in decent shape. (In Nicaragua kids cannot attend school without a uniform. There are about 20 kids in this community not attending for this reason.) We finally left Limon 1 and headed down the road to Limon 2.

Limon 2 was very similar to the first. We were greeted with the same enthusiasm and organization. One funny thing we saw were pigs just cruising around the school grounds! We took more photos and spent time with the students of Limon 2. The tour ended and we were left with amazing photos and 2 lists of names of those who needed uniforms. We have a total of about 95 kids what we are now trying to sponsor. The CAF Board of Directors is currently working on a Uniform Drive to be held at Samana Lounge in Vail, CO on April 3rd. The cost is $20 per person which sponsors one child to go to school. I would love to get this project completed and help the children of the Limon community. If you are interested in donating, please visit the Donate page of this website. You may either donate online or just mail in a check to the address on our contact page.