There is a favorite children’s book, by Laura Joffe Numeroff, titled “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”. Many parents know this book quite well. A little boy finds a mouse outside and offers the mouse a cookie. The mouse takes the cookie and comes inside and asks for a glass of milk, because he is too little to drink out of the glass he asks for a straw, and then he wants a napkin to wipe his face. The story goes on as the little mouse needs more and more to keep him occupied. At the end of the book the little boy, who invited the mouse into his home, is exhausted and the little mouse begins all over again wanting another cookie. I love this book and read it often to my daughter Gaby when she was little. As our new school grows, at Semillas de Amor, it appears we have the situation, “If you give a mouse a cookie” on our hands. We didn’t expect our kids to be so ready to learn, so interested and generally several steps ahead of us and ready to go. We opened a door and the children rushed in all wanting cookies and glasses of milk. Unlike the little boy we aren’t exhausted but lack the funds to give the children what they need. Basically, we have run out of cookies and milk and we need help to move forward with our program, “If You Give a Child an Education”.

As our children have gotten older it became more clear that we needed a solid bi-lingual (spanish/english) education program for them. Our youngest children, are 2 1/2 and were having delays in language. For the most part the children were not speaking. In a family setting a child speaks to his or her parents, siblings, extended family and caregivers. In an institutional setting that does not happen. The children learn to speak from each other which, of course, means they don’t learn to speak well and don’t learn to speak at an on target development time. This is never a good thing as when a child learns on task they move to build that task on to another. Our kids were not getting the solid foundation they needed to build a each new skill.

Our older children, although speaking fairly well, did not have very appropriate social skills and were bored and we all know when kids are bored they typically cause trouble or get depressed. We have many very bright children and now is the time for our kids to learn. Providing an environment of love, stimulation, challenges, creativity, learning is so important to our kids and we are hindered only by lack of funds.

The truth is that providing for our kids isn’t outrageously expensive. A teacher’s salary is $3,500.00 a year. We have two teacher’s salaries covered for the year by a family’s donation. But we need to cover three more teacher’s salaries or compromise our school. Our program has taken off with huge success because we have enthusiastic, bright teachers and because of Planting Seeds who has provided our teacher training and will continue to follow up with us during the year and provide on-going monthly trainings.

The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance. Please think about helping to keep our school alive and our kids thriving by making a donation at our website. We welcome any ideas about fundraising you have in mind. Some families do their own fundraising project, churches come together to donate, schools might want to make us a sister school, there are many ways to bring together people to help the children in Guatemala. I remember on my 40th birthday party (quite some time ago) raising $3000.00 for the orphanage in Guatemala where I volunteered several times a year. In lieu of gifts I asked for donations.

Please think about it and then act, the kids really need you. You can click DONATE to make a donation to Semillas de Amor.

We hope you enjoy our slideshow of our kids in school.