News : Vinton students help Guatemalan education efforts with greeting cards

Though they are two thousand miles apart, students in El Hato, Guatemala and Vinton are unified by a common cause: education. In a small village in Guatemala, Maria Rosenda Recopacni, Rudy Domeyco, Dina Norberta and and two dozen other students are making greeting cards as thank-you gifts for donors to their scholarship program. Here in Vinton, sophomores Alex Maynard and Monet Elwick are packaging the cards for distribution and earning Black and Gold volunteer points towards their school laptops and graduation requirements. “It is amazing to see young people on both ends of this project investing their time and energy in similar goals, ” said Julie Zimmer, distribution coordinator for Las Manos de Christine’s El Hato scholarship card project. The project grew out of a trip Zimmer and friend Susan Gnagy of Elkader took a year ago to visit Zimmer’s family, Brian and Denise Zimmer (also Vinton natives) who live in Antigua, Guatemala. Denise introduced the pair to the school in nearby El Hato, pop. 1,000, and the two former teachers spent a few days volunteering there with Las Manos de Christine, an NGO (nongovernmental organization) that supports the school and expands its offerings. They saw that many children living near the village are unable to attend school because their families can’t afford it. Parents rely on their children to tend younger siblings, cook, or gather firewood while they work, and families depend on the few pennies their children earn each day selling gum and drinks, working in the fields, picking coffee, or cleaning houses in a nearby city. School costs $30 a year for each elementary student, and older students pay $135 for inscription fees, books and uniforms. This represents both a cost and lost income to families, creating an insurmountable barrier in an area where the average worker is lucky to make $1,600 in U.S. dollars annually, and the average grocery bill for a family of five is over $3,500 a year. Everybody works.

The project that evolved after the women’s visit allows participating students to earn while in school and apply for scholarships to defray the cost of their fees, books and tuition. It also provides much-needed resources for instruction. Students make sets of Christmas and occasional cards as gifts for those who donate to their scholarship fund. Each card is one-of-a-kind, using familiar symbols from the local culture and environment. Zimmer said one of the most prevalent designs is the poinsettia that grows wild around El Hato, a familiar symbol to many countries at Christmas and year round. Zimmer said the cards have been well-received by donors from Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia and Iowa so far, for their colorful designs.

Getting the cards to the U.S. for distribution was another uniquely Guatemalan experience.

“There is no postal service at all in El Hato, and nothing mailed from the cities seems to arrive at its destination anyway,” Zimmer said, “so my son carried a suitcase full of the cards on the airplane when he visited last month.

“We’ve had incredible support on this end, both in terms of advice and donated envelopes, supplies, and web expertise, from Kurt Karr with Monkeytown, Carolyn Frazier, and Cathy and Steven Lariviere of Three Rivers Communications. I think the board in New Mexico and director of LMdC in Guatemala, the non-profit auxiliary to the school, are a little surprised by the creative network surfacing so quickly in a small town in the middle of Iowa to support these kids, some of whom will be the first in their families to read and write.

“Future cards will have printed greetings inside, but this time they weren’t ready yet when Brian had to bring them. Alex and Monet heard that I needed help stamping messages and tying cards and envelopes into groups of six, and they volunteered. They have been wonderful to work with, arriving at my house with smiles and getting a lot done. I’m impressed with the Black and Gold program and all the service learning opportunities the kids have in our schools.”

More information about El Hato students and Las Manos de Christine is available at www.lasmanosdc.org and the cards and scholarship program at (note the last three letters) www.lasmanosdc.com. Julie Zimmer and Susan Gnagy are available to speak to groups about El Hato school, Las Manos de Christine, Guatemala and the card project.