Jan 5th, 2008
New year 2008
Thank you, once again, for your donations. It really helped make so many children happy this Christmas.
kids helping with sweets.
Here is a small sample of the sweets we purchased with your donations. The sorting process was a long, grueling one. As you can see, we put many skilled hands to good use! In the end, we assembled over one thousand bags of candy. We even had enough funds to purchase a toothbrush for each child.
The picture below depicts the kids’ typical environment. These families live day to day and they often don’t have enough money to provide the kids with proper nourishment, let alone a Christmas gift.
Thank to Peter James we have this great photo below
The event kicked off around 4 p.m with the children and parents looking their best for this festive occasion. This was just the start! In true Latin style, the festivities didn’t end until around 3 in the morning!
The kids had a blast playing the traditional game of “El palo encebado.” This game requires that they climb a greased pole to get to the toys up at the top. It is truly a test of sheer determination. In the spirit of cooperation, the kids ended up making a human ladder to reach the top.
Next up was the tomato dance. Pairs of kids shimmied their hips to the frantic rhythm of reggaeton- all while holding a tomato between their foreheads!
This girl would earn a fortune teaching latin dance in London town!
Boy, do these kids have energy and do they know how to party!
At around 10p.m., hoards of children lined up to receive their bags of candy and their toothbrushes. The excitement in the air was almost palpable!
kids with sweets and tooth brush
Furthermore, for those who are interested to see, we joined up with a friend, Soledad, and gave 200 goodie bags to the high Andean children, where Soledad has been donating Christmas gifts and sweet bags to the children for the past 13 years. This year she donated shoes,clothes and rubber balls. See photos.
I hope that these photos show you just how much these children really appreciated your gracious donations. As for me, helping the families of a poor town in Ecuador celebrate their Christmas, really made mine! I do hope it does the same for you!
A special thanks to Fupel, a plastics company in Ecuador, for their donations of plastic bags!!
Please also leave a comment by clicking on the red comment button below!
Hi if any would like to see more of the photos form this event below is the link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ola-adventures/sets/72157603636689976/
Nice one on the fund raising efforts for those kiddies by the way boys, I don’t know if you got my comment on your site but we chipped a Chrismbo donation for ‘em.
We’ve avoided Christmas shopping altogether this year and donated to Shelterbox charity instead. It feels so much better a nd I didn’t have to trail around the shops like a lemon trying to find crap to give someone just cos I have to!!
Nice one
Me alegro Jonathon que estés disfrutando con tu familia de tu tiempo en el país, las fotografías lo dicen todo.
Great work Joe & the team. A nice touch remembering the toothbrushes!
Happy new year 2008 mate.
Good to see your healthy and well Jonathon.
Havn’t been keeping up with all the posts but had a good read tonight and looks like you’ve
been up to quite a bit with ola adventures.
Are you going to pop by this way anytime soon…..?
say hi to melanie for me.
cheers
rob
Felicitaciones por tan grande gesto,
Saludos cordiales,
José.
Que hermoso! It must have been really touching!
te quiero mucho.
Caro
WOW, what a fantastc job. I am really impressed by the excellent coverage of events and fantastic photos. It was incrediable how many children you were able to buy gifts for. One year I would like to be there to help. It is wonderful to see all these great fundraising events happening and I would like to find a way to fundraise here in Canada.
Well done
Thanks to Soledad another 200 bags got delivered to the needy Andean children.
Have a good new year 2008.