So what do we do when politians, over whom we have no control, independently donate to a school. It is an old established Mexican tradition. When a school has a project, they write petitions to everyone they can think of - government agencies, Rotary clubs, the hotel association, Por Los Ninos, etc - requesting funding. Each recipient decides independently whether to participate. Por Los Ninos decides thru a committee comprised of 7 Mexican educators and business folks, and 5 international residents who have each lived in Zihuatanejo for 8 to 15 years.

Is Jorge corrupt? Is our Mayor? I don't know, could be. Mexican chisme suggests that all politians are corrupt. Should we agree to work on the same projects they may decide to donate to? It's kinda complicated; we have discussed it often. We have learned that our participation usually encourages additional donors to join in. To date, we have just smiled at the ribbon-cutting and celebrated the new learning opportunity for our kids. The Pols get a photo op, and the kids get classrooms.

If Jorge is donating only to buy votes, he's not been very successful. After donating the concrete for more than 30 classrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and canchas over the past 4 years, he still lost the last election. Perhaps it is just barely conceivable that he has more than one motive for donating. Quien sabe?

Your comment regarding expanding existing facilities is well taken. In fact it represents the majority of our projects. We only build new schools when no reasonable alternative makes sense.

And, nope, we are not trolling your message board for funding. We are 100% funded by Sailfest. I just wanted to celebrate the good news and honor the community partnership.

Is Jorge corrupt? Is our Mayor? I don't know, could be. Mexican chisme suggests that all politians are corrupt. Should we agree to work on the same projects they may decide to donate to? It's kinda complicated; we have discussed it often. We have learned that our participation usually encourages additional donors to join in. To date, we have just smiled at the ribbon-cutting and celebrated the new learning opportunity for our kids. The Pols get a photo op, and the kids get classrooms.

If Jorge is donating only to buy votes, he's not been very successful. After donating the concrete for more than 30 classrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and canchas over the past 4 years, he still lost the last election. Perhaps it is just barely conceivable that he has more than one motive for donating. Quien sabe?

Your comment regarding expanding existing facilities is well taken. In fact it represents the majority of our projects. We only build new schools when no reasonable alternative makes sense.

And, nope, we are not trolling your message board for funding. We are 100% funded by Sailfest. I just wanted to celebrate the good news and honor the community partnership.

Why couldn't you all have simply upgraded an existing school? We already have a shortage of education resources, so it makes more sense to pool them together than to continue building more tiny schools for which there will never be enough resources.

You must also realize that it's very likely all that shiny new equipment is going to catch the eye of robbers. Hope you put up a good fence and have an armed watchman way out there on the edge of town. Just sayin...

But yeah, real good job. Can't blame you for tooting your horn and seeking more donors among my readers.

The school was previously housed in 4 cramped rented rooms in El Centro, and lacked the capacity to accept additional students from their long waiting list. The new facility has allowed them to welcome 47 new students, and now serves 130 bright-eyed young scholars. Enrollment is expected to grow rapidly, and additional classrooms may be needed in the next year or two.

The highly-regarded Bachilleres program is designed to provide an educational path to future employment for bright teens that have left school prior to graduation. Their reasons are varied; often simple economics – they can’t afford school, unplanned pregnancies, substance abuse, etc. Based on my observations, these returning kids are very highly motivated; more than half of this years’ graduates had GPAs higher than 9.0.

Our project collaborators fall into two categories; organizations that donate directly to the school; and businesses that donate to Por Los Niños de Zihuatanejo.

Direct donors to the school include Ayuntamiento, providing 8 construction workers for 10 weeks; CFE, CAPAZ and TelMex waived installation fees to extend power, water, sewer and phone/internet lines to the school site. Concreto El Hujal, headed by local aspiring politian, Jorge Sanchez Allec, provided heavy machinery for one week to break up the boulder field and level the site, and provided all the concrete floors. The school parents contributed nearly $100,000 pesos, and volunteered their labor, to complete the project. (They even co-signed a loan to raise funds.)

Typical businesses that donate to Por Los Niños include Sherwin Williams Paint, with a 25% discount, Compu-Servicios Cihuatlan, who provided the computer equipment at a 25% discount w/free installation and one-year, on-site service; and Grupo El Plateado who provided the building materials at substantial discounts (nearly their cost). The 200+ local businesses that donated gifts and services to the Sailfest auctions and raffles raised $251,390 pesos toward the purchase of building materials.

The completion of the Colegio de Bachilleres was the most ambitious single-year project in the 16-year history of Sailfest, and marks the 102nd classroom, bathroom, kitchen, or playground built by this community partnership.