Mexican Breakfast plus International Women's Day

On March 3rd, Mujeres de Maiz OF hosted the first ever Mexican Breakfast fundraiser at the Sequim Prairie Grange.  The breakfast featured tortillas, black beans, salsa, eggs, and cheese, with tasty condiments and orange slices, along with coffee donated by  Raven's Brew Coffee Company.  Over $1,000 was collected for the foundation's projects.

A fine crowd of over 100 diners came over on that Sunday morning  to
enjoy the tasty meal, prepared by Molly Rivard, Steve Gilchrist, David
Fox, Jim Reed, and Marilyn Gilchrist.  Other volunteers who helped with
the serving, cleanup, and hosting, were Linda Finch, Cathy Van Ruhan,
Sandy Reed, and Rose Bridge.

So many nice comments about the breakfast were received, we may have to do it again next year!

International Women's Day was celebrated on March 6th at Olympic Cellars winery in Port Angeles with a program that included Mujeres de Maiz Opportunity Foundation.  The evening consisted of a soup and bread pot luck and a presentation by board member Molly Rivard.  Her talk described the origins of the foundation and the ongoing programs which benefit indigenous women. A portion of the proceeds of the wine sales was donated by the winery.

Representatives of another local non-profit group, Serenity House, also
presented an explanation of their work.

The proceeds from the program were divided between the two non- profit organizations.  Thank you to Olympic Cellars for hosting this event.

 

Steve Gilchrist

Sequim Sunrise Rotary Rocks!

We are delighted to announce that this morning (March 15, 2013) Sequim Sunrise Rotary President Bud Davies presented Judith with a $1000 check that will go toward funding our new Children's Program in Ocosingo. That program is budgeted at $1800 for the year.  The Ocosingo Program is almost exclusively focused on Math and Spanish (the children's second language.)  The primary school in this community is a multi-level (grades 1 through 5) with only 2 teachers.  The students are not getting the attention or the instruction that they need to progress. Two of our scholarship recipients, Viky and her daughter, Gabriela, proposed this program to help the children not fall behind in their schoolwork. And although the program serves as part of the community service requirement for the scholarships, Viky and Gaby are very invested in their community and are enthusiastic about doing this.  Viky is also the person who conceived and organized the Altamirano literacy program that is now in its 4th year. 

We are so grateful to the members of the Sequim Sunrise Rotary Club for including Mujeres on their list of international recipients.  We would like to send out a special thank-you to Arthur Buhrer for his advocacy on our behalf with the club. We are in his debt.

Judith