Dear Friends,
My family and I have just returned from 3 months in Nicaragua and I finally have a chance to give a few updates on our projects as well as tell you about some upcoming events!
Last December we launched our 4th annual Coffee Camps Summer Program– a place for the children of coffee harvesters to go during their two-month school vacation, while their parents take to the field and harvest one of the largest commodities in the world– coffee! Here kids get 3 great snacks and meals, as well as medical and dental attention. Planting Hope´s Mobile Library for Peace also visits the camps each week, bringing with it our dedicated and talented staff who offer interactive games, theater, dance and music classes. Sign-ups have been great, as more and more families take advantage of this program that their kids so enjoy!
We also hosted 6 different service learning groups, high school and Multi-generational trips from Montpelier and Central Vermont, as well as South Burlington High School´s Big Picture program, Green Mountain Coffee’s Country of Origin Employee trip, a high school group from Missoula, Montana and Occupational therapy students and professors from the University of New Mexico.
We are excited to welcome 5 interns this summer to Nicaragua! These college students and graduates will be contributing to the mission of our Mobile LIbrary for Peace as we visit even more communities this summer as well as working with our rural, community pre-school teachers.
Probably our most exciting news in Vermont is that we are in the planning and funding stages to bring a group of 7 Nicaraguan staff to Vermont and New England for a month-long performing arts and project promotion tour!
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lanting Hope’s Performing Arts Teacher Marvin Kraudy (left) performs a number he and Montana delegation member Carson Kadas have been rehearsing for a long time!
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We are still looking for high schools and colleges to sponsor our group, which will offer performances, workshops on all types of Latin dance and improvisational theater, as well as dramatic representations of life in Nicaragua, through the eyes of Nicaragua’s children.
We have a VERY talented staff who are able to make an audience laugh in any language. We are excited to invite them for their first trip abroad to experience a lovely New England Fall, to meet and perform for Planting Hope supporters, and to eat their fill of apples! If you know of a high school, community center or college which would be interested in sponsoring a performance or presentation from this group, please contact me at the address below. Watch for more emails to find out how you can help host a staff member or an event. We also still need at least one dedicated person in Vermont to help me coordinate this huge, but exciting endeavor! Please see our listing on idealist.org and pass it on to anyone who may be interested. Nicaragua to New England Performing Arts Tour Coordinator
This year, we will be bringing back our Planting Hope Vermont yard sale, to happen in coordination with the group from Nicaragua’s arrival! Please save you gently used goods for resale for our late September yard sale. We will have a drop off time in early Fall.
And as always we count on your support in whatever amount you can give to provide jobs for our 16 full-time staff persons in Nicaragua as well as many work-study scholarship students who are able to continue studying because of the stipend they receive from Planting HOpe. If you are able to make a donation, please send checks to Planting Hope, PO Box 56, Montpelier, VT 05601 or donate online through Network For Good.
Thank you for your continued support of and enthusiasm for our work!
 Sincerely,
Beth A. Merrill
Founder, Executive Director (802) 778-0344
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Meeting the Sembrando Esperanzas Family in Nicaragua
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Planting Hope’s work is enabled by its hugely talented team of staff in Nicaragua. We’d like to introduce you to one of our long-term team members who helps make what we do possible.
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Staff Spotlight: Nereyda Urbina
From the very beginning
My story with Planting Hope began twenty years ago, when I was seven years old and a young American woman moved into my grandmother’s house in La Chispa, Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The woman, Beth Merrill, had come to teach at a local school, and I was thrilled that she was staying with my family. Every day after school, I would beg my mother to let me visit my grandmother’s house so that I could play with Beth. We quickly became friends. She appreciated that I understood her better than the adults in our family, and I enjoyed explaining to her those things she didn’t understand.
Beth soon fell in love with La Chispa. In 2001, with much hard work, determination, and the support of friends and community members, she built the La Chispa Library. I began working with Planting Hope in 2002.
There is not enough space to describe all we’ve done between then and now, but in short, it’s been wonderful. In just this past year, in fact, we’ve accomplished a lot. This spring, several groups of volunteers have come to support us and the school communities we serve. And although the delegations were only here a few days, they inspired those people they encountered, and we are very grateful for their help.
I’d like to thank Beth Merrill, too, for planting the seed of Planting Hope, and to everyone who has supported us as we’ve grown into the organization we are today.
Gratefully,
Nereyda
Nereyda serves as co-coordinator of the Mobile Library and of the Educational Programs at La Chispa Library. She hopes to travel to Vermont this fall!
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Lasting Impressions
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As a delegation leader in last month’s high school cultural exchange trip, I was once again so impressed at the impact that Planting Hope trips have both on participants as well on people’s lives in Nicaragua. I know that every one of the students I brought down has had their world perspective changed dramatically by their experience with Planting Hope. They each grew not just in their understanding of the world beyond Vermont. They also learned about themselves – finding new strengths, passions, adjusting their sense of necessities, of happiness, and of friendship.
I also am so happy to see how much Planting Hope has grown in Nicaragua. The folks who work with the bibliomobile are doing amazing work in literacy, health, confidence-building, and more. The team leading the brigades is enthusiastic and responsive and did an excellent job organizing and leading our group! The fact that I saw Beth very little in our time in Nicaragua is a testament to how she is pushing for (and supporting) self-sustainability in the organization, cultivating leadership in others, and bringing more and more people into the mission of Planting Hope.
-Colleen Purcell, high school Spanish teacher and recent leader of a Central Vermont high school delegation
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Central Vermont Multi-High School Delegation, February 2014
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If you’d like to support Planting Hope’s mission with a financial contribution, please click the donate button below to make a secure donation through
your PayPal account. Thank you for your support.
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Thanks to Planting Hope’s spring intern, Julia Gilbert, for her help with this email message.
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Planting Hope is a small NGO founded in 2001 by Beth Merrill of Montpelier, Vermont. While on a college internship in Nicaragua, she was asked to teach in a local school while a teacher was on maternity leave. Through this experience, she made deep connections with the families in the La Chispa neighborhood of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, a city in the central, coffee-growing mountains of the country. Several years later, she had the opportunity to return and asked members of the community what they needed. The reply was a library. Beth returned to Vermont, raised the money, and built a library for them. Planting Hope was born Since then we have grown in leaps and bounds creating partnerships both here and in Nicaragua.
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