Summer Camp 2013

Change My Stars... Week 1 Hello, my name is Evelyn Bower. I am one of the volunteers this summer and will be updating the blog. I hope you enjoy what you read... :)

 I have never realized the amount of opportunity America hands it's people from education, to career, and finally the many ways to come out of the poor circumstances some Americans were born into, until I set foot in Munõz, Dominican Republic. The small community I live in is full of Haitian people who live in this endless cycle of poverty. With an education that doesn't go past 6th grade and the divide between two classes, there is no hope until someone from the outside comes like Project Esperanza, Change My Stars (Cambia Mis Estrellas) English School. I have never been more proud or excited to bring the hope I have learned to these people through teaching English, in this six week camp. We have the blessing of being a part of changing the path these kids can take, giving them hope for a better future! How awesome!!!

 Yesterday was the end of week one, which went well! Each week has a theme, this week was family and body parts. We taught the children songs, crafts, stories, and games that relate to the vocabulary. The children's favorite song was, "The Family Finger Song." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8anh48PfkQ These sweet kids loved "Simon Says," this also taught them the body parts. Arts and Crafts showed all the volunteers how creative these kids are, how happy they can be with simple things like a piece of paper and crayons can make them. The beauty of simplicity is overwhelming here.

 I believe the first week went as well as it could have. The first couple days were a little rocky because there were so many students and few volunteers (IF YOU WANT TO HELP GO TO: www.esperanzameanshope.org/ ). So the next three days we tweaked the way we were doing things, focused more on one volunteer for one group, instead of groups switching from one volunteer to the next - it was like night and day. At the end of each day we ask the students what they learned that day, the difference between what the students learned on Day 1&2 to Day 3-5 was great. I am proud of the things we accomplished the first week and it will only get better from here. These kids are great and are so amazingly smart! Stay tuned for next week's post.

Summer English Camp Starts Tomorrow!!

Summer camp t-shirt design. T-shirts donated by Atlanta printing company owned by the husband of one volunteer.

Summer camp starts tomorrow, Monday, June 24th, but in a different area of town than in the past two years. We are running the camp in our grassroots school in the community of Padre Granero. The camp will run until Friday, Aug. 2nd.

In the past years, we charged a fee for sponsored campers or registered campers to attend camp. We mainly did this because the building we rented was quite expensive, to cover transportation, as well as other odds and ends. This year, since we are doing the camp in an already existing school building, we are not charging the camp fee, but the biggest expense we have to cover is the transportation. It comes out to about $8 per week, per camper. We will bus in 5 campers from the community of Los Dominguez (Eriverto, Miguelina, Milena, Enelbi, and Miguel Angel), and 5 campers from our grassroots school in Muñoz, who will ride with the volunteers each morning. If you are a native English speaker in the Puerto Plata area and would like to help out with camp this summer, please e-mail cambia.mis.estrellas@gmail.com.

We want to invite you to sponsor one of these campers for their six weeks at camp, or to make a donation to the Change My Stars fund in general, which will go toward summer camp or toward the scholarship funds which are ongoing. Stay tuned for weekly updates and pictures!