How to send things

Many people have asked me how to send supplies to me and Centro Buen Pastor.  The best way to ensure that things make it to me with the least cost and the most security is in the luggage of people who visit.  Each passenger can take 50lbs free and 100lbs for only $25 on JetBlue, which is a great shipping cost!  My Dad, Gail, and Jeremy are coming to visit in November, which means they can bring up to 300 lbs of supplies.  I will be home at Christmas and can bring back 100 lbs with me, and many of my friends have said they might visit this spring, but nothing is set in stone yet.

The other option, which is more costly, is to ship to the Episcopal Church in Santo Domingo where we can go and pick it up.  To do this ship to:

Sister Jean Gabriel Crothers attn: Tina Benson

c/o Agape Flights
DMG 13174
100 Airport Avenue
Venice, FL 34285-3901

In addition to the shipping cost to send it to FL, please also send a check worth $1.50 per pound shipped to Centro Buen Pastor to cover the extra shipping we need to pay to pick up the package. (Check payable to Centro Buen Pastor)  That is also the address where monetary donations to Centro Buen Pastor can be sent.

Centro Buen Pastor
c/o Convent of the Transfiguration
495 Albion Ave
Cincinnati, OH 45246

Ebony showing off her new backpack
(and wearing my boots)

Backpacks are still in demand, but I know that they are also in demand for American children who can not afford them.  We did get a handful in last week with a donation of school supplies, and a few of the kids who had bags that were ripped or really unusable to carry their books got them, but there are not enough to go around.  Thank you Sharon Rabe for the donation of notebooks and crayons!  The crayons will be Christmas presents along with other supplies we hope to get in for the younger kids and the notebooks will go to some of the older kids.  But again, we can still use many, many more.

One of my 4th graders working on Social Studies

In any school or any group of kids, kids covet what the others have, and that is true in my classes.  My third and forth graders especially eye what other kids have, and ask to borrow things they need that they themselves don't have.  At home, this tends to be IPods, Cellphones, and other electronics, games, toys, or fashion items.  Here, its pencils, erasers and pencil sharpeners.  I have had a full brawl break out in a class over a stolen eraser.  These kids treasure those things and try to make them last as long as possible. Kids who are lucky enough to have an eraser or pencil sharpener are constantly being interrupted by their classmates who need to use them and do not have their own.  It would be really great to have a large wall-mounted sharpener (the old wind the crank kind) for each classroom so that each student could sharpen his or her pencils any time they needed too (there are 8 classrooms in the primary school).

Some of my 3rd graders

There is never any end to the need for composition notebooks.  Each kid should have one for each subject to take notes and do their work, but with the cost of each about $1.00, that is a huge expense for families who, if they're lucky, make a few dollars a day.  When I first started working with the 3rd and 4th graders, many of them were panicked that I would require them to buy a separate notebook for my lessons, or even worse, a textbook.  But I reassured them that they would not need them, and they were grateful.  My older students who meet every afternoon have notebooks and texts that I bought for them, because they also can't afford such extras.  I also have many pens that my dad donated that they use for class and extras for them to use in school, and I bought some pencils and erasers for them to use in the class.

A 4th grader working copying new vocabulary

My 4th graders are having a blast learning "I like to Eat, Eat, Eat Apples and Bananas" and other songs we've been learning.  They love that the vowels change each verse, and the boys especially like to shout "I like to Ut, Ut, Ut, Upples and Banunus."  They can now talk about what they like to do and we're starting to work on what they don't like to do.  My 3rd graders are learning the numbers and they are all good up to about 6 or 7 and we've worked on up to 12.  After we get up to 20, I think we'll work on the alphabet.  My afternoon class is now starting directions and how to give someone directions.  This is one of my favorite units because we'll play hopscotch and Chinese jump rope games that require directions like: left, right, inside, outside, up, and down.  That will be a lot of fun.  After that, the next unit is clothes, and I've already started making cutouts of different clothing items we can use in our "store" so that they can "shop" and "sell" with each other.  It should be a lot of fun.

Hillary, Celestino, and Janeidy in study hall class

My study hall students are all coming on a semi-regular basis now.  They have all said they are doing well in school, and Emelyn was very excited to report that she got a perfect score on a quiz that she studied for with me and did very well on an oral presentation that we worked for a long time one afternoon so she could memorize it.  Its exciting to see them excited and proud about their work.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Dios les bendiga,

Tina