Uniforms for Students project - the best outcome

On Jan 28, 2010, the government published an article on  http://meduca.gob.pa/  which essentially stated that the government will supply the following for all students in official government schools in Panama:  text books for the students that will need to be returned to the school at the end of the year, a backpack of school supplies, and a $20- voucher that can only be used towards the purchase of school uniforms.   If this can be delivered as published, this is great news for the students in Panama and it will help many-times-over the number of students that the UFS project has been able to reach over the past 3 years of the project.  This government action has shown that there is a need to help the students and we applaud that the government has chosen to take this action.  

The news of a voucher being available to students has been known by the UFS group for some time.  Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to get the details of when, how, to whom, and what for that the voucher would be available or could be used, we did not know the details until yesterday.  We even had executive level Panamanians trying help to find the details for us.  Since raising funds for any project takes time, we chose to start the fund raising so that we could proceed to help students in the coming school year; anticipating that the government project would not materialize this year.  But - it appears to be materializing; and that is good.   The UFS project can now terminate.  The GAMES NIGHT of Feb 11, 2010 will be cancelled, as will the associated RAFFLE.

This development leaves us with some funds in hand that need to be returned.  The community has been very generous. We thank the donors very much for their donations and support in 2010 and over the past three years.  We will not attempt to thank everyone individually here but suffice to say that we had donors that contributed from $20- to $500-; a generous group.  For all of the money received for donations, Games Night admission tickets, and Raffle tickets, we have records of the persons who gave the money and that money will be returned.

For the raffle tickets for Games Night we want to thank the following donors: John & Sandy Heidemann (plane ride), Alice Dupree (dinner for 4), Barry & Clemencia ( games night venue & 1 hotel room night), Anne Marie (yoga class), Irwin (salsa lesson), Cholos Mexican food restaurant (dinner for 2 and 2 T-Shirts).

The crew remains:  Sharon Rennie (6470-4699), Deanna Borden (6543-4551 ), Dolores Young (6427-0129 ), Mayra Davidson (6616-5585 ), Brenda Jung (6808-7881 ), Clemencia Watson (6682-1472), Alice Dupree  (6804-9840).   Please contact the person from whom you bought a ticket to receive that money back (but they will most likely be contacting you first).  Sharon will be returning the money to those who gave direct donations.

Special thank you to Jamuna and her www.playacommunity.com crew for their valuable assistance.

For email to donors and publication on www.playacomunity.com