With the new additions the JRF is the youngest it has ever been and has more kids than we have had since we left the Dominican Republic. A significant majority of the foundation is under the age of 9. We no longer accept children older than 9 as it is far more difficult to help and mold pre-teens and teens than it is to help and young children. We do have a program for high school age kids in which they can earn a scholarship to a private school through good grades and volunteering at the JRF to tutor younger children.
Lameika and Avigiel at lunch. The look on Lameika’s fits her personality perfectly
I interviewed two of our new children. First up is Manleika, pictured above and below. Manleika is a spunky, sharp and popular young girl. She is 7 years old, in 2nd grade and has 2 siblings, one older and one younger. Her mother does some stitching for GT but is not one of our core employees. Manleika loves to do all the things most children love, play, dance, sing and joke around. She felt my interview with her was making her talk entirely too much and eventually made the executive decision to cut it short. She hopes to one day work as a nurse and if she had a million dollars she would buy gum, just gum, apparently she has ambitions of becoming one of the world’s largest gum moguls.
The other girl I interviewed is Avigiel. Avigiel is the first albino member of the JRF. She was immediately drawn to me and her and the other children love to talk about who is whiter and who is darker between me and her, she tans darker than me. She has some vision issues which I believe is relatively common with Albino’s. She does not stay out of the sun but also doesn’t burn, she just gets a dark tan. She is 7 years old and has two brothers, whose ages she would not guess at. Her mother does stitch for Good Threads. I asked her what she wanted to do for money when she grew up and she responded that she did not want to do anything. I asked her how she would buy clothes, eat or pay rent and she responded that she would live on the streets naked, like a crazy person. She did not understand my question about what she would do if she had a million dollars, so I asked her what she would do if I gave her a backpack full of money and she responded that she would buy a backpack. She was undecided on whether that would mean spending all the money in the backpack on a new backpack or discarding the money and just keeping the backpack. She is playful and pretty silly as you can see by her question responses, she is also quite bold, evidenced by how comfortable she felt approaching and befriending me.
The space with gravel will hopefully be our new wrestling/rough house room
Lastly the JRF is in the process of undertaking a new project. We have not offered dance as an extracurricular for over a year and our running club is also no longer a thing. I would like to start a playroom with wrestling matts and offer wrestling and maybe basic boxing as an extra-curricular. I have been doing the fall budget to see if we can afford the Matts and small construction project. The Matts will be about 3,500 US for the whole room + shipping. We would pour a cement floor in the pictured area and put a roof over it and maybe put up a half wall. I was a wrestler in high school and feel capable of teaching it. The kids love to rough house and a room in which they could rough house without fear of someone landing on their head would also be a real boon for us. A lot of our children also deal with trauma, some well and some not so well. I think a healthy outlet for some of that frustration, like wrestling, would also be very good for their mental health. The discipline wrestling instills would also be great although weight cutting, which we wouldn’t do, is one of the area of wrestling that requires the most discipline and would not be part of their experience.
As always none of this would be possible without our supporters. The accomplishments of the JRF are in my opinion accomplishments of the JRF community, which includes our employees, children and supporters. Together we are making a difference and you are all appreciated
