Honduras

Isn't it amazing where God opens windows? Who would have ever thought that because I became a teacher, in Birmingham, I would be given an amazing opportunity to travel.

I feel very blessed to have been placed at Shades Cahaba in Homewood. It has been a wonderful school for me - a school rich with culture, supportive parents, incredible staff, and children who are eager to learn. One thing that I love the most is the Character Education program which is the foundation of so much that we teach. With character comes service to others, another idea that our students embrace whole heartedly. In a school with around 600 students, we donated over 1800 hours worth of Community Service this year! (http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/south.ssf?/base/community/1234948545299450.xml&coll=2)

Over the past two years, our school has participated in a wonderful program called Read to Feed. This is an education based program which raises money for Heifer International. Heifer has long been a favorite non-profit orgranization of mine. The basis of Heifer is to make people around the world more self-sufficient. The whole philosophy is based off of the idea of give a man a fish verses teach a man to fish. Rather than donating a meal or money to a family, Heifer donates animals. These animals help to provide nourishment, money and even help with the work load. All of this in an effort to make people more independent. Another aspect of Heifer that I really like is that each family who receives a gift from Heifer, in turn donates offspring of their animal to another, in need. (http://www.heifer.org/)

All of that being said, over the past two school years, students at Shades Cahaba have asked friends and family members (and even the local Rotary Club!) to pledge money for each book that he/she reads. Through these donations, our students have collected around $12,000! How truly amazing!

Yes I know, you are beginning to wonder what on earth this has to do with Honduras. Well, through my involvement with the Read to Feed program I became aware of a trip, which I applied for and feel so completely blessed to have been awarded. I will be traveling with a team of 18 teachers from around the country to Honduras. This trip, solely for educators, is completely paid for through grants. The goal of the trip is for all of us to share ideas with one another, see Heifer at work, see poverty in the world, and bring it all back to the classroom.

I will be leaving on Saturday, June 20th to fly to Houston where I will be through Monday morning. While in Houston, we will be meeting and discussing ways we can teach our students about world hunger as well as getting to know more about each other and what we will be doing on our trip.

On Monday we will fly to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. We will stay at the Heifer Lodge there for a few days before continuing on to Copan and then on to San Pedro Sula, where we will fly out of, the following Monday, the 29th. During the week we will be visiting project sites and even some Mayan ruins.

I am truly thrilled and honored to be going on this journey. I do not believe that I will be able to do much, if any, blogging, while I am away, but I plan on writing a detailed journal and will happily share it through the blog upon my return. And of course, I will share the small amount of pictures I will take... :)

Thank you for reading, and thank you for interest and support.