This past Saturday, October 27, 2007, we had our second joint all-day volunteer effort between Tropical Adventures and Helping Hands Costa Rica at the Bambu Retirement Home on the Talamanca Indigenous Reservation. For those of you who didn't read the original post, you can find it by clicking here. This event was made possible by a very generous donation made by the "Iain Programa, S.A." and through the hard work of Meranda Glesby and Evangeline Mathura.

The event was a smashing success! We were able to finish up the project we started last month in record time this weekend, mostly thanks to the surprise arrival of many extra people we weren't expecting.

One of our volunteers, Susan Schuetze, from Ontario, Canada, had just finished up two weeks of volunteering in the Bambu area where she had been living with one of our host families, working with the retirement home, and teaching English in the nearby Bambu elementary school. It just so happens that she is good friends with the Director of the Police Force of Costa Rica, Jose Fabio Pizarro, and had invited him and his family to join us. Not only did they join us themselves, but they also invited some of the local police force to help us out as well.

When we arrived and saw them all there, we initially thought something terrible had happened! But when we realized they were there to help us out, we got pretty excited, as you might imagine!

Thankfully we had some extra food with us and we were able to feed all the hard working folks with sandwiches, sodas and chips. Many thanks to Evangeline Mathura and Helping Hands Costa Rica for donating the food for our lunch. It was well deserved and delicious!

The following amazing people were on hand to help out:

From the Tropical Adventures Foundation:

• Scott Pralinsky, Executive Director
• Isaac Garcia, Director
• Allen Vinicio Meza Sandino, Tropical Adventures Volunteer Center Co-Manager
• Alison Smith, Tropical Adventures Volunteer Center Co-Manager
• Susan Schuetze, Volunteer (Ontario, Canada)
• Ryan Rigoli Volunteer (San Francisco, California)
• Kim and Jonathan Stout with son, Miles, Volunteer (Portland, Oregon)

From Helping Hands Costa Rica:

• Adriana Woods, Escazu

Through the Banana Azul Guest House:

• Silvio Antonio Duran Salinas

Guest Volunteers (thanks to volunteer, Susan Schuetze):

• Jose Fabio Pizarro, Director of the Public Police Force of Costa Rica
• Jose's wife, Yalile and daughter's, Natasha and Sharon
• Eight to ten police officers from the area

Also present were some TV cameras to interview everyone about their experience, which made things pretty fun and interesting and created quite a buzz in the community.

We hope to not only return to the retirement home in the near future to help them with many other much-needed projects, but to also put together fun volunteer weekends in other parts of the country to make these opportunities available to more people. If you have any interest in possibly joining us in the future for one of these kinds of events, please contact us and we'll be sure to put you on the list of people to keep updated.

Thanks again to everyone who helped!

One of the nicest parts of being a Costa Rica-based non-profit organization and being very small is that all of our volunteers become a significant part of our family. Each and every person who takes time out of their lives to share of their talents, resources and energy is valued tremendously by not only Tropical Adventures, but also by our host families, children, schools and communities.

Costa Rica and the people here are so wonderful, it's pretty tough not to fall in love! It's not unusual for our volunteers to continue on in a relationship with Tropical Adventures and the communities here. It's especially normal for our volunteers to continue on with their relationship with their host families. Many of our volunteers have flown back to visit their host families, bringing with them husbands, wives, children and friends. These are relationships that last span the globe and last a lifetime.

Occasionally, an individual or family is so moved by what they see of our work as an organization here that they feel they want to participate on a deeper level. That was the case recently when The Millar Family made a most generous donation of $10,000 to our Tropical Adventures Foundation.

Garth, Brenda (Millar), Aidan, Callum, and Rory from Alberta, Canada were our very first family to arrive as volunteers back over a year ago. They actually drove all the way from Alberta to Costa Rica together! It was a most exciting experience for all of us. Since then, we've had many families join us as volunteers. As a matter-of-fact, family volunteering has become one of our most popular programs.

It is because of the generosity of people such as the Campbell Family that our foundation is able to continue on the work that we do here in Costa Rica. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts, as do the children and families of the communities we serve! Without such help, we would simply not be able to exist.

Anyone else interested in making a tax-deductible donation should contact Scott Pralinsky, Executive Director, for more information, or merely click here to make an online donation.

Thanks again!