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!

The Hone Creek Elementary School was our first project location way back when. So we have a soft spot in our hearts for this place. When they told us they needed a new roof (among many more urgent needs), we got to work on raising some awareness and money to help them out.

Then Helping Hands Costa Rica came to our rescue. This is a new group that has started up with great momentum and is lead by no other than the magnificent, bright and energetic Evangeline Mathura. Helping Hands announced recently that they will commit to raising enough funds (approximately $4,000) to replace the roof at the Hone Creek School.

Many thanks goes out to Evangeline and all the wonderful people who are part of this group. If anyone would like more information about other needs that the school and communities we work with have, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'd love to speak with you about it.