Panajachel Guatemala Tamale Baskets

This week I was fortunate enough to visit Mayan Families, an NGO in Panajachel, Guatemala. I have been sponsoring a child in school through their organization, bringing fabric for their sewing classes and wanted to see more of their organization for myself. It turned out to be one of the best NGO's I have ever run across and is doing wonderful work in an area with hunger and a huge poverty rate.

www.mayanfamilies.org

Christmas Tamale Basket Fundraiser 2009

IT IS THE SEASON FOR SHARING.

At midnight on Christmas Eve 2005, two of our sponsored students went door to door hoping someone would give them a tamale to eat.

This is the traditional meal at Christmas in Guatemala. Their single mother could not afford to buy the ingredients to make Tamales.

When we found out about this we wondered how many other families could not afford to celebrate Christmas and how many other children were sad and hungry at this time of the year.

It turned out there were a lot of people who could not afford to celebrate Christmas.

In 2006 we started the Christmas Tamale Basket Program. We gave out 215 baskets of food. In 2007 we gave out 650 baskets. In 2008 we gave out more than 1,000.

There is a food crisis in Guatemala now and there will be even more families asking for help.

Food prices have continued to rise and the Food Crisis is taking its toll on children and families. There are lots of families needing help.

Malnutrition is a constant challenge.

Please consider feeding an impoverished family this Holiday Season.

Many families in Guatemala do not have enough food to eat this year. Many of the families that we work with cannot afford to have the traditional meal at midnight on Christmas Eve.

For $35 you can give a Christmas Tamale Basket and feed a family of 12 or more. Our Christmas basket is made of plastic and will be used afterwards by the family to stack and wash dishes, hold food etc. The food items will include: Oil, 15 lbs of Rice to make the tamales, a block of drinking chocolate (this is traditional to drink at midnight), a loaf of bread with which they eat the tamales at midnight, raisins for the tamales, grapes, apples, sugar for the Tamales, 5lbs of meat, tomatoes, one pound of coffee and leaves to wrap the tamales.

To make a contribution for the Christmas Tamale baskets please go to our website http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateOnline and go the General Donation section to send a donation.

If you would like to pay by check please send your donation made out to Mayan Families to: Mayan Families
P.O. Box 52
Claremont, N.C. 28610

If you would like to give this gift in Honor of someone special, please send us an email at dwight@mayanfamilies.org
giving us the details and we will put them on our IN HONOR OF web page.....if you would like to include a photo of your "someone special" we will also post their photo.......to have an e-mail sent to the person you are honoring - please send us their email address.

Thank you for your support.
Best wishes,
Sharon Smart-Poage
MAYAN FAMILIES
Tel: 619-550-2608
Web: www.mayanfamilies.org

ABOUT US:Mayan Families is a small non-profit group working in the Highlands ofGuatemala. We are a registered 501(c)(3) Non Profit Charity of the Internal Revenue Code.
Your donation is tax deductible.

P.S. Please help spread the word by forwarding this e-mail to your community or posting it on your personal blog, web page and your socialnetworks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Hi5, Ning and any others thatare appropriate.

Please follow Mayan Families on
Blog: http://mayanfamilies-sharon.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mayanfamilies
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1603632323&ref=name
Ning: http://mayanfamiliessocialnetwork.ning.com/