School Uniforms

Creating Smiles One Uniform at a Time

Uniforms for Secondary Students

Finally! The uniforms that were ordered for six secondary students in July were finally delivered on October 10th. Maestro Gerardo Tolentino Zamora approached me about helping five outstanding students who needed help with obtaining the new uniforms and I was glad to help. Lorena, my faithful and tireless assistant, also had another student with good grades that she wanted included bringing the total to six. Because of the generosity of my friends I was able to outfit these six young ladies with a dress uniform and a sport uniform. The school decided to change uniforms this year and they are very expensive. I was able to obtain a discount from Lucy who owns the uniform store in Ajijic, the only store where these uniforms were available. With this discount each uniform set (one dress and one sport) cost 1050 pesos or at today's exchange rate $55.00 U.S. This cost, compared to the $17 U.S. for each primary uniform (dress uniform only), is a huge outlay for the many impoverished parents in San Juan Cosalá who want to give their children a chance at a higher education.

Gerardo had all of us visit three classes of first year students as encouragement for others to study hard and excel. We also talked about Pathways, a scholarship program for prepa (high school) and university, a program that my friend Pat Baxter administers. http://pathwaysmx.weebly.com/ There were cheers all around for the six students who are excelling and were awarded the new uniforms.

Very few children make it past the secondary level but hopefully, with some encouragement and incentives like the new uniforms for excellent grades, these young ladies and hopefully a few more can go on to a higher education.

Many thanks to Gerardo for reaching out to me and many thanks to all of you for your continued support in the uniform program. Without each and every one of you none of this would be possible and a total of 26 uniforms were distributed in both the primary and secondary schools.

The young ladies send their heartfelt thanks to all of you.

Jonnie Harker

The New School Year 2016!!!

This new school year we are rewarding those children who are excelling in school or who are entering first grade and have other siblings also attending on a regular basis. At the end of the school year in July I met with the director of the primary afternoon school Urbana #1107 and each teacher recommended two deserving children from each class giving me a total of 16 children with excellent grades and attendance. I added four more to that, two first graders and two others whose grades were good but were financially strapped and needed help.

Because I had chosen Urbana #1107, my friend Rosa Villa, who is a seamstress in San Juan Cosalá, made all of the pants for the boys and jumpers for the girls and therefore I was able to keep a large portion of the money spent on uniforms in the village. Lorena Barrera, my friend and tireless assistant, and I still had to make the trip to Guadalajara to buy the shirts and sweaters. We hopped a bus for our shopping spree and were pleasantly surprised to find a great number of shops selling uniforms and were able to get the best prices.

Today we presented 18 of the uniforms to some of the deserving children of San Juan Cosalá. Without the generosity of my friends and donors this would not have been possible. The parents asked me to extend their thanks to you for helping support them and their children.

Thanks to all of you who helped me with this project. As an aside, with the peso to dollar exchange each complete uniform for the primary students only cost a little over $17 U.S. What a bargain and as you can see your donations go a long way!

But the story does not end here! Several weeks ago I was approached by Gerardo who is a teacher at the secondary school (junior high). He said that the school decided to change uniforms this year and that they were very unique and expensive. He asked if I could help five of his students who could not afford the new uniform but had excelled in school. Three of the girls had a perfect 10.0 for the year and the other two had 9.9 and 9.7 grades. How could I refuse? There is only one store locally that sells these uniforms and they are on back order and so that story will follow as soon as I have the uniforms which may be several months!

Jonnie Harker

Another Uniform Delivery

It seems to me that most of the educational assistance programs in the area are for the older children with the goal to help them get into college. Pathways is one such wonderful program where Pat Baxter works closely with students and finds sponsors to help support them to achieve their goals. They are closely monitored and grades must be held to a high standard to continue in the program.

For more information please visit her website at http://pathwaysmx.weebly.com/.

What I saw when I undertook this endeavor was the number of younger children who were not attending school because of lack of money to afford the required uniform or unable to participate in extracurricular activities because of the required sports uniform. My goal was to assist as many as I can to be able to experience school, obtain an education, and hopefully excel and be able to qualify for higher education assistance from groups such as Pathways. I have no requirements that grades be met but to just go to school and be exposed to the possibilities of what an education can provide.

Thanks once again to generous donations I was able to make another trip to Guadalajara for uniforms and tennis shoes. With the help of Lorena, my friend and a promoter for ProMéxico, she talked with the director of Encarnación Rosas primary school and he had another request for more sport uniforms for 15 deserving students who excel in school but do not have the financial resources to purchase their own. These are the uniforms needed for special events and are also worn in the colder months.

Another promoter for ProMéxico is Rosa. She spoke with her son and he happily agreed to drive us to Guadalajara for a day of shopping. Juan Jose was a patient and delightful young man who was surrounded by three women who filled his car with packages. I cannot thank him enough because another bus trip would have been almost impossible with 15 boxes of shoes, uniforms, and shirts.

We gave out the new uniforms yesterday and were honored to have the president of the Jocotopec municipality present. There were many smiles from students and parents alike. They were all eager to change and pose for a photo so that all of you can see their new duds!

In the coming months I will be talking with the director of the school to see who is finishing with primary school this June and moving on to secondary. This is important because so many do not move on to secondary school. If supplying uniforms to students who want to continue on to this next step gets them into a new school I want us to be there to help make this happen. Without you to assist me none of this can be accomplished. I am so grateful for all the donations and the children and their parents say a big thank you!

Jonnie Harker

School Uniform Project - UPDATE

It has been about a month and a half since this project just sort of fell into my lap. If you remember, through generous donations I was able to get three children back into school. Because my benefactors were so generous, I still had plenty of money to spend and more children to find to participate. Thanks to Lorena, one of the promoters at ProMéxico, the search was on! She introduced me to Magda who has two children who needed assistance. She then introduced me to Rosa who has three grandsons who were going to be going to the Catholic school in San Juan and needed uniforms. She and I also met with the director of J. Encarnación Rosas primary school, Mr. Figaroa, and he said he had seven current students who were economically challenged but good students that needed the secondary uniform that they wear in the winter and for special events such as parades and other events and could not participate without them.

Wow, the list was now a long one and how would I ever be able to make this work. Magda, Rosa and Mr. Figaroa provided a list of names, grades, and sizes for clothes and shoes. I now had a total of 12 students to buy for! Lorena, with whose help I could never have accomplished this, suggested that we go to Guadalajara to shop because we could get discounts for bulk purchases. We also needed to get this accomplished quickly because the seven students that Mr. Figaroa felt deserved assistance wanted to participate in an upcoming gymnastics event the following week.

On Thursday, November 12th, Lorena and I caught the bus and went to Guadalajara. After 9 hours we were back home with three complete uniforms and shoes for the Catholic school children and 9 sets of uniforms and tennis shoes for the others. Believe it or not I had just enough money for all of this and the amazing thing is that all of this in U.S. dollars was only $259!!!!!

But wait, the story is not over. November 19th was the gymnastics event on the plaza in San Juan. There were five or six schools participating and they each had a choreographed marching routine set to music. J. Encarnación Rosas included the seven students we helped and who saw me and smiled and waved. Their performance was first and they were wonderful. Unbeknownst to me, this was a competition. I am thrilled to tell you J. Encarnación Rosas won the competition!!! They were all cheering and dancing in celebration. Lorena and I were so proud and she said "This is a very emotional day" and I couldn't agree more.

Thanks to the donors there were seven participants who were able to participate in the event and along with their other classmates were winners in more ways than one. The director thanked me and asked me to thank all of you for helping make this a truly memorable day.

Many thanks to Lorena Barrera, Director Figaroa and maestra Maria Gutierrez for their help and support.

I am looking forward to being able to do more and I hope that you will join me. My piggy bank is now empty so please spread the word so that we can create more smiles and winners one uniform at a time.

Jonnie Harker

School Uniform Project

Nancy has written about the first community project in San Juan Cosalá where we could get more tokens into the community to use at The Magical Token Store. It was a volunteer neighborhood cleanup project and the volunteers were given tokens to use in The Magical Token Store based on the amount of time worked. It was a great success with similar projects planned for the future to give other people in the community an opportunity to earn tokens to shop in the store.

I guess you are wondering how school uniforms are related to this. It is really quite simple. When you go into the neighborhoods you meet the residents and their families and you have an opportunity to talk with them about their desires and their families. I had this very opportunity during the neighborhood cleanup project and I found that the big need in this small neighborhood and others as well is for the children to have an opportunity to go to school.

Most of the people in San Juan Cosalá are financially challenged with money going to basic needs for housing and food and are either unemployed or underemployed. The requirements to attend school here is that they pay a small tuition fee and the children are required to wear uniforms. I met a single father of three children ages 7, 8, and 12 who had paid the fee and was given a week at the start of school to provide his children with uniforms but after a week they were turned away because he could not afford the uniforms.. His children have not been in school for two years and so the 7 and 8 year olds were going to be in first grade and the 12-year-old was going to be in third grade.

When I heard this I decided to see what could be done. I believe that every child should have the opportunity to obtain an education so that a brighter future is possible.

I reached out to a group of friends in the expatriate community and through their generous donations I now have funds for seven uniforms! The good news for San Juan Cosalá is that all of the uniforms and the school supplies were purchased in the village so that it benefits others in San Juan. Many thanks to Lupe who sold us the uniforms from her tienda and to Gerardo who sold us the school supplies from his papelería.

The first three children received one uniform apiece complete with shoes and school supplies and were off to school on Monday just one short week after this need was expressed! The children's father said, "Thank you for having faith in me and doing this for my children."

There are many more children out there that need some help. We will not be able to reach them all but the word has spread and there are other children looking for help. There are no criteria for the decision on who receives our help but the name of the principal and teachers for each child will be obtained and if the children do not attend school as promised the uniforms will be returned and used to give another child a chance.

Another idea that is being considered would be a uniform exchange at The Magical Token Store. Because children grow so fast, it might be possible to offer them a place to trade in a uniform in good condition for a larger size. This idea is being passed along to the ladies at The Magical Token Store and if this is something the community would be interested in then they will have the task of bringing it to fruition.

Thanks so much to those who have donated to the uniform project. A little money goes a long way. At today's exchange rate the uniforms including shoes for a child is only $30 or 500 pesos and the supplies without a backpack are $6 or 100 pesos. If you would care to donate you can do so through PayPal on this website and indicate that it is for uniforms or supplies or both. If you would rather donate in pesos please send us an email and let us know.

Jonnie Harker

Tony & Jonnie with Esperanza and Karina

Maestra with Karina and Esperanza