Sunday, April 1, 2012

PROGRESS of The JULIE MEMORIAL PROJECT

NOTE:  Please forgive us for having some mistakes with the links below for a time.  We believe they have been corrected and now work properly.
 Julie Andersen Versteeg, who we call the "First Volunteer"  in the Foundation's work among the Mayan-Poqomchi in Guatemala suddenly passed on February 22nd.  At her Memorial Service the family suggested donations be made for a special project rather than giving flowers. If you haven't seen the YouTube video of her Memorial Service (59 minutes long), nor the Video of Julie's Memorial Project (5 minutes long) click on those links to see them.

UPDATING OF FUND RAISING FOR THE JULIE PROJECT: Update April 5th
January.....2 donors requested their donations be switched ................$1,000.00
February......................................................................................................$   998.10
March ..........................................................................................................$3,946.90   
                                                                                Sub-Total....................$5,945.00 
As explained in the Memorial Project video, a new 6th grade classroom will be built in her honor at the Valparaiso School for which $7,500 was  needed.    To this point we still need around $1,555 more, plus a little extra to keep the other projects going.     

We are grateful for all of you who have helped, and encourage others to each help a little too.  Sufficient funds have been transferred to Guatemala to begin the project, initial materials are on site, and the construction will begin after Holy Week--or on Monday April 9th.  I might add that our Regional Director, Federico Veliz, has invited the people of the Valparaiso Community to also donate, and has promised to supervise very closely the construction.  By so doing he feels we can also  do a needed renovation of the school kitchen.  

For any of you who will donate $50 or more we would be happy to send to you an 8"x10" glossy print of the mosaic of Julie's life seen below.  You can donate online, and send me en email, or a note in the mail that you'd like to have a print.  Others of you who have already donated can get one too, if you'll let me know.  Contact information is on the How To Help page.