Another year for Ometepe calendar

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, November 24, 2004

As calendars filled with their very own artwork rolled off the presses at Custom Printing on Wednesday, the Wilkes elementary third-graders beamed.

It wasn’t just their work that made them proud; it was knowing that the sale of their $10 calendars this holiday season will help kids from Ometepe, Nicaragua, with whom they share a special connection.

Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua, is Bainbridge Island’s sister city.

“I want to help save the boys on the streets, because all children should have families and homes,” said 9-year-old Ben Freedman, while 8-year-old Danielle Bogar­dus said, “We are helping to build a clinic so that people don’t have to walk two miles to see a doctor.

Said 8-year-old Halle Braswell, “It made me realize I can make a difference in the world.”

For the 12th year in a row, third-graders in Alice Mendoza’s class have painstakingly created the calendars as a project benefitting Ometepe.

This year’s rendition features the national flowers of countries around the world, which the students researched and drew themselves.

“Make it matter, and they will rise to the cause every time,” Mendoza said. “If you find a way to engage them, to make it real, their ability to learn grows exponentially.”

If Mendoza’s current class achieves its goal of raising $10,000 from the sale of this year’s calendars, the project will have grossed more than $100,000 since her students started the project.

“They’ve been living and breathing this project for two weeks,” Mendoza said of her students’ work on the “Kids Can Make a Difference” project.

Once Custom Printing completes the printing process – which the students got to observe first-hand on Wednesday – the third-graders and their families will set up tables to sell the calendars at various island stores this holiday season.

The third-graders themselves decided how the proceeds from this year’s calendars will be spent, earmarking:

• $2,000 for building materials for a new classroom in a community between Los Angeles and Esquipilas. Ometepe volunteers will construct the project, with help from Mendoza and the group that is joining her on the trip this spring.

• $6,000 to build a medical clinic in the rural community of El Corasal, a project that will receive matching funds from the Bainbridge Ometepe Sister Island Association.

• $2,000 for the addition of a multipurpose room at Si a La Vida (“Yes to Life”) shelter in Managua, which takes in homeless boys, many of whom become addicted to glue-sniffing on the streets as a way to numb hunger and fear.

“They have a lot of ownership in this project. It’s empowering for kids at this age to see that they really can make a difference in the world,” said Mendoza, noting that some former students have remained involved in various Ometepe projects into high school.

Mendoza will make her third visit to Ometepe this spring, accompanied by the family of third-grader Taylor Wilson, whose older brother Grey and father Stacy made the trip four years ago. A high school group selected by the Bainbridge-Ometepe Sister Island Association will be making the springtime trip as well.

In addition to helping build a classroom, Mendoza plans to tour all of the other projects that have been funded over the years by the calendar project.

Of all the stories about Ometepe, those detailing the plight of Nicaragua’s street children seem to have made the strongest impact on Mendoza’s students.

“The boys who go to Si a La Vida are runaways, or they have become lost from their families, or they have been thrown out of the house because there are too many mouths to feed,” said Kylie Van Aken, 9. “They sniff glue because it makes them not think of food, but it destroys their minds.”

Mendoza said because her students are personally invested and deeply interested in Ometepe, some students make great strides in writing and researching during the calendar project.

Student Kaz White, 9, rewrote his paper on the Ometepe project several times to get it just right.

“The biggest challenge was all the drafts, and the only way I got past it was that I knew I was helping Ometepe,” he said.

“I’m very proud of you, Kaz,” Mendoza told her student “You showed me you are a writer.”

And a writer who understands the printing process, at that.

During their visit to Custom Printing, manager Mark Lovejoy showed the students how their work made its way from their hands, to a computer rendition, to sheets of paper on the printing press, to a final project folded, stapled and stacked in a box, ready for distribution.

Custom Printing has been a crucial partner in the calendar project since its inception, steeply discounting the production costs.

“Every year, the staff thanks the kids for letting them be part of such an important project,” Mendoza said.