Hello Everyone,
This week we’re updating you on two recent events: the annual Fordham University visit and our fun trip to beach.
Last week, Fordham University made their third annual visit to the JRF, during which a small group of students come to meet, interact, teach, and learn about our children. This year, we did things a bit differently and had the Fordham students lead their own lessons, instead of only assisting in ours. For two full days, Fordham organized our children into small classes that focused on math, geography, art, dance, and culture. It was extremely successful. The lessons that were especially new and exciting were geography, dance, and US culture. Because geography isn’t taught in schools here, the kids know next to nothing about cities and countries around the world. There are even many adults in the Dominican Republic that believe the entire United States is New York. Most children react with “It’s so small!” when they see the island of Haiti and Dominican Republic on a map compared to neighboring countries. The geography lesson focused on learning the 7 continents and some famous landmarks around the world. Another fun lesson included learning about culture in New York City and some slang terms in English. Perhaps the liveliest lessons of the two days were dancing. The kids were taught the YMCA, Cotton-Eyed Joe, Cupid Shuffle, a dance to Jump On It or Apache. About 20 kids at a time were gathered on the basketball court, put into lines, and learned how to shake it to American music. Even the 4 and 5 year olds held their attention and had a blast stepping and kicking. The Fordham students did an excellent job involving themselves and we are grateful for their continued support of the JRF.
In more fun news, we took our annual beach trip to the north coast this Monday. The beach trip is an event that is talked about nearly everyday throughout the year until finally the big day arrives. On the bus ride there, the kids can hardly contain their excitement as they sing, dance, and marvel at the views out the window. We hit a record this year and took 107 children and 11 adults total. There were over 30 children who were new since last year and hadn’t yet been to the beach. Upon arrival, we heard the usual, “The water is so salty!” One little girl told me, “They put a lot of salt in this water!” And all of the kids say that the water “stings” them. Everyone was well-behaved and had great amounts of fun. We are amazed each year at how brave the kids ages 4-7 are when they get in the water. They run in as if they’ve done it a hundred times and lie on their bellies letting the waves rush past them. It’s incredible how fearless and content they are just playing on their own or with another 5 year old buddy. The children play like this under the sun all day, not resting until it’s time to go. Of course, once the bus is loaded to leave, half of them pass out from exhaustion and the adults enjoy the relatively peaceful ride home. The children have hardly begun to walk home when they start to ask if we’ll be going to the beach tomorrow. We sadly have to say no, and so begins the next year’s anticipation for the 2015 beach trip.
Here is a link to an album of our trip that we posted on our facebook page. Attached to this email is also a group photo and just a few of the adorable moments of the day.
We thank you all so much for your support. We wouldn’t be here without you.
