Character Counts

Lisa Mastain was in Puerto Plata in November and spent some time volunteering at the Dove Missions Center. She so generously donated a television, VHS player, and fan to Dove Missions. We have been wanting a television for awhile, and the kids were really excited about it! Here is the Boys Club watching Character Counts; an educational video. This TV will be just another tool we can use to help educate the kids in our programs. Lisa also provided the money for a pizza and ice cream party, so a big thank you to her (pictured below with Yaneli) for all her help to Dove Missions.

Kite Making

The Boys Club spent a class working on kite making. The kids are so creative and love doing projects like this. They went home with their kites, and shortly after, ran back to the Center to show Liz and Cathy their kites. They pointed in the distance, and there, tied to the house of one of the boys, were their kites flying high!

Baby Steps

The following was written by Cathy Flynn, Dove's Vocational and Recreation Center Program Director: I had some visitors from England this week, and they came along to the Center. While I was at the Center talking to them, Titi came up to me and started tapping my leg saying (permiso) excuse me, so that he could speak to me. I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but for weeks now Liz and I have been drilling into them that they have to say excuse me if they want to interrupt a conversation. Well he finally did, and I cried!!

Busy Saturdays

Saturdays are BUSY at the Center! Throughout the day, we have Club with all of the kids! After the recent additions of some final children, we are at a grand total of 80 children that DOVE welcomes in the Clubs. For now, we are going to add just a few more kids off the wait list for waiting sponsors, and then we are going to stay at that number (around 85) as we work on raising support to grow the program to include more children; fundraising for things like rent payment, snacks for the kids, teachers, craft and educational materials, etc.

We have the kids split into five different groups by age and gender. Here are some photos! The Divas (girls aged 10-13) did not get a group photo, but there is one photo with some of them at work. The jefes (our older boys aged 14-17) also did not get a group picture, but you can check out some recent photos of them at their page.

Here are our dolphins. They are our girls aged 6-9. Top row in the top photo is: Mariely, Yani, Viviana, Camili, Meriledi, Claribel, and Heidy. Bottom row is: Lorani, Erica, Sindi, Stefany, Anamilka, Tania, Erica, Yamali, and Kathiana.



We also have divas, who are our girls aged 10-13. We didn't get a group photo on this particular Saturday, but here are some of the girls hard at work. Left to right is: Alani, Loraina, Vanessa, Patricia, and Yohani.


Here are our liones (lions). They are our boys aged 10-14. In this picture, you can see (left to right for top picture): Almondo, Franciel, Victor Manuel, Andy, Yordi, Leuri, Yeffri, Marcos, Richard, Marcos V., Eddie, Luis Manuel, and Oliver. Three of these boys (Oliver, Yordi, and Franciel) are actually in the jefe group but managed to sneak into this picture!



Here are the lobos (wolves). They are our boys aged 6-9. In this picture you can see (left to right for the top picture): Omar, Jose Antonio, Luis Daniel, Gustavo, Titi, Yoandi, Luis Gusatvo, Yesson, and Antonio.



And a group photo with all the kids (note that we did have several missing- all 80 are not in these photos).

Art Contest

We finally announced the winners of the Art Bench contest! The older boys painted the wooden art benches that they had previously made in wood shop. And the winners were; Alberto 1st place, Eddie 2nd place, and Andy 3rd place. The girls club picked the winners. 1st prize was 500 pesos, 2nd was 250 pesos, 3rd was 150 pesos all coming off the balance of their bike loans. Each child that participated and painted a bench all received 50 pesos off the balance of their bike loans for trying.

Alberto, first place


Eddie, second place


Andy, third place

New Faces

As you know, every child in the Boys and Girls Club has a sponsor. The $30/month pays for their family to receive food vouchers every month. We have a long wait list of kids wanting to join the club, but we can only add kids as we gain sponsors, and additional funds to pay for their crafts, snacks, and the programs we provide in the Club. We have had some new sponsors come forward, so here are photos of some recent additions to the DOVE Vocational and Recreation Center! You can click on their names on the sidebar to learn more about them.

Patricia


Yani


Natanael


Luis Daniel


Rosi


Tania

Teresa

The boys have been busy with DOVE's teacher, Teresa, who they love! Here they are working hard and having fun at Boys Club this week. She is pictured with the group, and then with Marcos and little Yeffrey.

Kick Off!

Written June 20, 2009, by Melissa Bazely, who volunteered with Dove Missions for 2 months during her forth humanitarian trip to the DR.

Today was the kick off day of the new boys and girls club. We are temporarily using a school in the community run by a very sweet lady named Hilda who knows everything about everyone in the community. She was the one who recommended a lot of families for our program. Everyone that was supposed to be there today, showed up, and the attendance sheet was full! We held the boys club in the morning, and the girls club in the afternoon. Everything went SO smoothly.
For the craft, we had the kids cover their hands in paint, and then make their hand prints on construction paper. Then they decorated with sparkles, and wrote their name on the sheet. We also had them write (with our help) what they wanted to be when they grow up in English and Spanish. One of the boys, Sauri who is 14 and one of the leaders in the class wrote that he wanted to be a fisherman. We asked him why and he replied “so that I can feed all of the people in my village”.

After the craft we let the kids outside into the basketball court, and they went crazy! Running around, playing basketball; they LOVED it! At the end of the boys club, two of the older boys, who we have appointed as class leaders, one of them being Sauri, came to us and said some very kind words. Andy, who is 13, and who I have gotten to know over the past 7 weeks, said, “on behalf of everyone in this community, all of the Mothers, and all of the boys who were in this room I want to thank you all for working to help our future”.

*above photo- Hilda, Melissa, Luis Gustavo, Cathy, Adriana, Sauri, Nikki, and Andy
As soon as Liz translated this for me, my eyes welled up with tears. Andy looked at me, and I looked at him, and all I could do was give him a huge hug. This was also the same boy that said he wanted to be a pilot so that he could fly to Canada and visit us. For me, this moment made all of the paperwork we did, all of the dry preparation and application process we did for this club SO worth it.

The girls club in the afternoon we did the same craft, and we realized that girls are a lot calmer than the boys. They are so sweet, and they listen so well. Some of the girls brought containers full of cut up fruit such as pineapple, cantoloupe, and banana to share with everyone. After the craft, we played the game “What Time is it Mr. Wolf”? They had a lot of fun with that, and then of course, they wanted a huge 25 person game of “Stella Ella Hola”. It took a really long time to finally get a winner, but the girls had a great time.
Overall, we had an amazing day. I have no other effective words to describe it.