Heart and Home Mexico 2009Spectrum Heart and Home Mexico 2009 needs you!
Poverty in Mexico is unbelievable. More than 44 million Mexicans live in poverty; living on less than $128 USD a year. These are people with nothing, no food, nothing to sustain them, no access to clean water, no sanitary living conditions, nothing.
Our Grade 11 Marketing class at Spectrum School is going to Mexico to help “Children of the Dump Org” feed over 2200 people a day, make renovations to five orphanages and help teach the kids English.
We are on our way all is well blue skies and smooth seas. 
Here we are with Day 2. We had a early start at 3:30 Am to catch the 6:30 am flight to Puerto Vallarta via San Francisco. The kids were awesome, even that early in the morning. We went through every checkpoint and security stop without a hitch. Nothing was asked of anyone and we didn't even have to pay anything extra for the extra bags or being over-weight.
We arrived in PV and were met at the airport with new vans and super friendly people. They took us to the church and fed us immediately. We were accepted as family and the people are so happy to have us here and are going out of their way to "serve" us. It's amazing. The food is delicious - fresh and home-made. All of it is authentic Mexican so we looked a little nervous the first meal but everyone tucked in and it has been wonderful. We were brought to our hotel and got settled. It went well, it is clean, big rooms, hot water, nice pool, and very safe. Went back to the church for dinner and came back and chilled.
Saturday we went on our adventure cruise, we had the boat to ourselves and the skipper and first mate were fabulous. We got lots of extras and personalized service. We saw great sights, went ot a beach and the kids had a blast para-sailing and sea-doing. Went snorkling, saw whales, and even went fishing. A full and fun day was had by all. That night we went to the church for supper and then as a surprise went to the poor peoples hospital and handed out free bags of buns. We had lots left over so we went to the dump and handed them out to the people in the barrios. We felt very safe and secure. the people were so happy to see us and they kept thanking us for bringing joy into their lives with the free food. It impacted us all very deeply; seeing how they live in cardboard shacks with one small shack holding 29 people - 18 adults and 11 kids.
Here we are at Day 4.
The kids are awesome. They clean their plates, clean the table, do dishes and eat and eat and eat. Today we went to the school of Champions and they cleaned and gardened, and cleaned and gardened. They were truly inspired. They fed people around the dump and on the dump. The local people young and old are so friendly, gracious, and willingly accept what we bring. They always say thank you and smile. The children are all so clean and happy - but have precious little if anything. Another fabulous day with many stories!
Day 5
Fabulous day! Extremely productive. I was busying photographing all of the children at the school - all 275 so I don't have lot of photographs of our guys but they worked their buns off. They have pictures so don't worry. We had kids doing: 1. sports activities with the kid 2. cataloguing kids 3. feeding kids 4. going to the dump and feeding people there 5. prepping and painting a daycare centre. The did an amazing job. Wait till you see their pictures. It was a very long and very hot day. everyone is save and sound and getting very fit and trim. Adios! 
Day 6
Another incredibly, amazing, fun-filled, action-packed, productive day. I only have pictures of one location becasue it was my turn to fix and paint. We had students: 1. doing sports at the school 2. holding a make-over day with the kids - manicures and hair 3. feeding in the dump 4. driving 100 miles down the coast to a very poor village handng out hot meals to a very poor village - they got to see porpoises 5. painting and fixing a daycare. Our kids are changed! They have worked their buns of in heat and humidity without complaint and keep on ticking. You can be very, very proud of all of them. I know I am beyond beleif. by the way I am including my colleagues the chapperones in this group as well. they have been an absolute blessing and incredible wealth of talent and energy. Heart and Home Mexico 2009 has all of that and more! 
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