This is to update you on the
Friendship Club's recent
activities as we continue to supply medicine and
pay for medical
support for the needy of the North Bay area. The Friendship Club of La Cruz
continues its good works through the summer months.
Our most recent new clients include a 24 year old Bucerias resident diagnosed
with leukemia.
We are paying for his testing and medication. Alejandro is an abanil -- a
brick layer -- and we hope
he will soon be well and able to work again.
To all of you who are north of the border, please remember we will again be
collecting used eye glasses
to distribute to the senior centers in La Cruz and Bucerias.
Following are the donations from benefits held at Philo's last year:
APERCH Brunch, 6,442 pesos
Senior Center Mexican Benefit Night , 19,890 pesos
Mujeres Bahia de Banderas Mexican Benefit Night, 24,000 pesos
Friendship Club of La Cruz Mexican Benefit Night, 33,8000 pesos
APERCH Mexican Benefit Night, 10,255 pesos
In addition, thank you for 15 units of blood, 400 Christmas gift bags for the
children of La Cruz,
more than 300 pairs of used eye glasses, $250 USD to continue funding the
teachers for Beginning
Children's English classes, and several thousand pesos donated at the yoga
and Spanish classes to
fund the children's Christmas gifts and the English classes, proceeds from
sales of the Banderas Bay
Cruisers' Guide by Lew and Anneke Jennings, Buddy's bug profits, and many
pesos handed to me for the
Friendship Club.
Words are not sufficient to express gratitude for your generous donations
throughout the season.
The Friendship Club of La Cruz has taken on a new client, Erick, a 2 1/2 year
old boy from La Cruz who needs three surgeries in Mexico City to correct a
rectal birth defect. He is in Mexico City right now for the first surgery. We
are helping with expenses, and the Friendship Club has the funds to assist,
thanks to your generosity over the last year. We have just contributed 5,000
pesos and will be giving more for the next two surgeries.
Submitted Summer 2007
A report from the Friendship Club of LaCruz: This month we paid for
school supplies for
thirteen children in Bucerias. For some of them, this made the difference
for whether they
were able to go back to school or not. We will be helping some La Cruz
school children as well.
This has cost around 5,000 pesos so far, with more expenses
expected this month.
We continue to pay travel expenses for 11-year-old Socorro and her mother
for their trips to
Guadalajara where Socorro receives chemotherapy for leukemia. She is
responding well, and
we are so happy to be able to help her. If you are interested in helping
us with a financial
donation before you return to Mexico, you can send funds to our PayPal
account. Log on to
Paypal, click "Send Money" and then fill out
kdobek@hotmail on the "To" line. You do not have
to be a PayPal member to do this. Any amount will be appreciated and help
keep us going
through the summer months. We are again requesting used eye glasses to hand
out to the
townspeople of the area. Last year we were given so many, I stopped counting
when I reached 600.
If you bring any, I will find people to give them to, so bring as many as
you can. Also, Philo and
the Friendship Club are accepting used desk-top computers in working
condition to give to the local
schools. This request may be easier for those of you already in Mexico, as
Mexico restricts bringing
in desk-computers. If any of you can help, email me or Philo and we will
help you figure out how to
do this.
A note from Valiene: I heard of someone bringing down several used desktop
computers with a
letter stating that they were inoperable and were being sent to Mexico for
parts. Each computer
had a card from a computer repair shop attached to it. Good idea!
Submitted June 15/07:
The Friendship Club of La Cruz has seen a large increase in requests for
help this year. We have tried to help as many as we can, with the result
that our cash reserves are very low.
These are our financial needs right now:
Socorro, a 12 year-old girl with leukemia, needs 1,020 pesos to pay for
round-trip transportation for her and her mother to Guadalajara
for chemotherapy treatment.
Ruby, an 11 year-old girl, is having eye surgery tomorrow in Puerto
Vallarta. DIF (the national family aid agency) is paying 2,500 pesos, the
president of the municipality is paying 3,000 pesos, but they still need
2,500 pesos more and have asked us to help with the remainder.
Erick, a four-year old born with an anal birth defect, has had another in a
succession of surgeries in Mexico City. His family is asking for help with
expenses that total $3,573 pesos.
In addition to the children's needs, we support adults also, and have been
asked to help pay for chemo therapy for a woman in Puenta Mita recovering
from a masectomy and for therapy expenses for another woman in La Cruz
recovering from surgery to repair a broken leg.
If you are able to help us with any of these individuals, any amount will be
greatly appreciated. Your donations can be given to Philo or Kathleen.
Submitted March, 10/2007
Hello Friends,
This is to update you on the recent activities of the Friendship Club of La
Cruz.
This past week, we paid an 18,000 pesos hospital bill for a La Cruz resident
who had hip surgery. She is a laundress, and was unable to pay this bill.
Also, we paid 14,000 pesos for a woman with breast cancer. Her husband drives
a garbage truck and is left with 3 children to support, as his wife passed
away. We paid 2,600 pesos for school expenses for the children of a Bucerias
family. We have just learned of a La Cruz resident who needs cataract surgery.
Sandy Baker and the Friendship Club will share this bill of 1,500 pesos. Thank
you, Sandy, for bringing this to our attention and helping with the expense.
The Friendship Club has 7,900 pesos in cash. This is a low amount for us, but
I trust that whatever medical or school expenses come our way, we will have
the cash on hand.
On May 6, we will participate in the 4th Annual Altruism Festival, hosted by
US Consular Agent Kelly Trainor and the Marriott Hotel. The Friendship Club
needs to sell 40 tickets at 300 pesos each to be eligible to participate in
next year's Festival. This is well worth our effort, as we received 18,000
pesos for last year's participation. The event will feature gourmet food
samples from 20 of Puerto Vallarta's best known restaurants and exceptional
entertainment. Tickets will be on sale beginning March 26 from Philo or me.
Please support us, even if you won't be here in May. Just consider it a 300
peso donation to the Friendship Club.
Submitted Jan. 19
The Friendship Club of La Cruz is as busy as ever, helping our regular
clients, and now providing financial support to an 11 year-old girl for her
treatment of leukemia in Guadalajara. To all of you, thank you so much for
giving us the ability to help people like her.
Some of our financial support is from the sale of water color note cards,
framed original water colors and books. The note cards are reproductions of
the framed art painted by Muriel K. Taylor and displayed at Philo's Music
Studio. They are for sale at Philo's and depict scenes of La Cruz, including
beach scenes, which are now historical, as La Cruz's beach has changed
forever.
Also at Philo's, we are selling Ornamental Plants and Flowers of Tropical
Mexico by Linda Abbott Trapp. Linda's photos help with identification,
and she includes care, cultivation and propagation information. The price is
250 pesos.
Linda has just published another book, Letters to My Granddaughters,
"an inspirational self-help guide to many of life's most complex and
challenging issues." This book is 130 pesos, with proceeds from both books
benefiting the Friendship Club.
The Friendship Club of La Cruz is a non-profit organization based at Philo's
Music Studio. With your continued support, we will be able to continue our
efforts to pay medical expenses for the needy in our area. Your purchases
and donations make this possible.
Submitted Dec 2006 We are now paying half of the medical expenses for Fernando, the young man
employed by APERCH to clean the streets. His medicine is costly, and it was
taking almost everything he earned to by it himself.
Three people with leukemia have been helped: a young man in Bucerias, a ten
year old girl in La Cruz, and an infant in La Cruz. The infant recently passed
away, but our assistance helped relieve the parents' financial burden. The
ten-year old girl is now in Guadalajara for medical attention and we continue
to help with her expenses. The young man is on medication and doing better.
Partial expenses were paid for a woman in Bucerias who had an ovarian tumor
and needed surgery. She has fully recovered.
This week we are paying travel and other expenses for a man from Bucerias to
go to Tepic to determine the type of surgery he needs for his eyes. We will
also help when the time comes for his surgery.
In September we paid for school supplies, uniforms, and school and gym shoes
for a girl in La Cruz. As we have the funds, we plan on helping more in the
future with school expenses. For some, this will make the difference as to
whether they can continue school or not.
As always, we are able to do all this because of your generous contributions.
I can not put into words how much this is appreciated. Thank you, all.
Another effort near to my heart are the English classes at Philo's. As a
volunteer English teacher, I have watched a number of students over the past
five years progress from speaking no English at all to being moderately
bilingual. Last week, Beginning Children's English classes started up again
and the turn-out was better than we expected. Because of this, we will be
hiring a second teacher. We need 600 pesos a week to fund these two classes.
An anonymous donor gave us 1,200 pesos to start this season's classes, but we
need more. Please consider making a pledge to fund one month's worth of
classes. The children of La Cruz will thank you. In English.
The Friendship Club of La Cruz is based at Philo's Music Studio, where we have
note cards for sale depicting watercolor scenes of La Cruz, scenes now
historic, as the marina construction has changed the coastline. Also on sale
is the original art from which the cards were made.
Thank you to all who are returning with used eye glasses. They will be
distributed to the senior centers in La Cruz and Bucerias.
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