As the president of the Homestead High School Spanish club in Mequon, WI, Talia Gottlieb organized a fundraiser to benefit a community in Nicaragua where she lived on a VISIONS trip in 2015. After hearing from Talia, our local partner Victorino identified a great project to fund: the repair of a dilapidated kindergarten.

The school is located in El Hormiguero, a rural community in San Jose de Bocay Municipality, north of Jinotega. There are 56 families settled there in pieces of land donated by the city hall, and the public school is too far away for kids under 7 to walk to (about 2 kilometers). Several members of the community have agreed to provide the labor to rebuild the existing school, but would not be able to afford the necessary materials—metal tiles for the roof, wood for the structure, and hopefully a concrete floor—without the support of the Homestead Spanish Club. So far, the club has raised $800, which is enough to provide these needed materials!

We’re thrilled to act as the go-between for Talia and her classmates to make this project happen, and love hearing from other alums about the lasting connections they make to local communities when on a VISIONS program.

The students at Homestead hope to do an additional fundraiser this spring to make sure there’s enough money for a concrete floor, and any additional funds raised will go towards finishing touches on the interior. Stay tuned for updates as the work progresses, and if you’d like to donate to the project, you may do so through the VISIONS Foundation website.