from our International Service Chair, Bill Maule
The little town of La Estancita, Guatemala, suffered an educational tragedy. They had a school for their children, with government paid teachers, but they really needed a better school building. The students were crowded into a borrowed building that was not only much too small, it was located where many of the town's children could not reach it. What to do?
Then, along came the Hug It Forward team. A larger better located school house is now under construction. Who is building it? Most of the villagers are involved. The children collected the trash from around the town - empty plastic bottles and other plastic trash. The mothers stuffed the trash into the bottles. The team sent experts to teach the men (and the children) how to mix cement and taught the men how to produce reinforced concrete for the floor and the pillars. Everybody worked to use those trash filled bottles as wall insulation and then coated the bottles with layers of concrete. Probably right now they are plastering and painting. Everybody worked together under expert guidance, everybody will care for that building and know how to maintain and repair it. Fringe benefits? The men have learned a valuable skill, the countryside has been cleared of trash, none of which will add to the plastic now clogging our oceans!
You may ask who is paying for it? In part, YOU are! You worked on the golf tournament, the fun run, the beer garden, the poker tournament, and soon will be involved in new fund raising efforts. A small part of those funds allowed us to contribute to the costs of the new school house. I, and those villagers, thank you!
Photos show the walls after the first and second coats of concrete over carefully placed trash filled bottles. It won't be too many years before that little boy will be attending that school, thanks to the Hug It Forward team, and to you for the funds our Club provided. Now, as we head for the Golf tournament and the fun run you can think of those pictures and the contributions we will be able to make for yet another school, to stand with over 100 others that the Hug It Forward team has helped build.