Who are we?

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We Are: Mission Nicaragua

We are a group of youth and adults from the Anglican Parish of March which comprises St. John’s in Kanata, Ontario and St. Mary’s and St. Paul’s in Dunrobin, Ontario. We are going to Nicaragua August 4 - 13, 2011 as part of SchoolBox to help build a school.

What is SchoolBOX?

SchoolBox, a registered Canadian charity, supports the right of every child to a basic education. It is an organization driven by a sense of responsibility and love towards the children, teachers and schools that it serves and operates on the premise that education is the best weapon against poverty.

Primary education is the best investment that a country can make. Yet, sadly the sector is underfunded in Central America. There is a chronic shortage of desks, classrooms and schools. Teachers often work years as unpaid volunteers. The maintenance and repair of school buildings is often left entirely to the parents of students.

A significant portion of revenue from participants in SchoolBox goes toward employing people, purchasing materials and favouring small enterprises in Nicaragua.

The dream of SchoolBox is simple: Make education possible for the children of Central America.

Who is going on the trip?

There are three youth and one adult from Councillor Eli El-Chantiry’s ward going on the trip and six youth and four adults going from Councillor Marianne Wilkinson’s ward. The group is lead by Rev. Jessica Worden-Bolling, Associate Priest for the Parish of March.

Youth
Matthew Anderson St. Mary’s
Alexandra Bailey St. John’s
Kristi-anne Best St. John’s
Alexa Chick St. John’s
Ronan Colquhoun St. Mary’s
Caileen Dolan St. John’s
Katie Fagan St. John’s
Quinn Madsen St. John’s
Elizabeth Sandor St. Mary’s

Adults
Rev. Jessica Worden-Bolling All Churches
Vance Bolling St. John’s
Marcia Adams-Aston St. John’s
Bruce Chick St. John’s
Pam Colquhoun St. Mary’s

What will it cost?

We successfully raised the approximately $29000 to pay for the trip on top of the $1000 required from each person to pay for flights. The needed money will go towards a donation to SchoolBox , assistance preparing for the trip, ground transportation, accommodations, meals, bottled water, donations of goods and funds to local non-profit organizations and excursions among other things.

What did we do to raise money?

The following section lists of some of the activities the youth organized and worked at over the past year. While working at these projects the youth learned a lot about:

• working together to accomplish a goal
• the challenges of planning a large event for the public
• the amount of work required to run a successful event
• how some events take a lot of work but do not have a good return while other events require much less effort and have a very high return
• volunteering just for the sake of helping

Fundraising Projects

• Odd Job Squad where they offered their services to help people in the community with tasks such as lawn cutting, weeding, yard clean up and baby-sitting
• Volunteered at several church fundraisers such as the Lawn Supper at St. John’s, the Raspberry Social at St. Mary’s and the Christmas Bazaar at St. Paul’s where they helped set up, serve and clean up. At each event they placed a tip jar on a table and, although they weren’t being paid to volunteer, the tip jars were filled during the event by attendees who appreciated the work the youth did
• Orienteering BBQ with Eli El-Chantiry and Gord Hunter
• ‘Spookhetti’ Dinner
• Roast Beef Dinner
• Royal Wedding Cream Tea Party
• Chapters donation day
• Bake sales and towel sales
• Entertainment books
• Bottle drives
• Selling donating fall vegetables
• Numerous donations
• Spanish Fiesta

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Comments

[Marcia Adams-Aston]

Fundraising events
We also sold a number of Nicaraguan art cards.

[Matt Anderson]

Mission Nicaragua
After a lot of hard work we are ready to set off to Nicaragua with high hopes and lots of optomism