Dasha Zerboni is a high school student at Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego, California. She had the privilege of spending two summers living in Antigua, Guatemala. With her family, she traveled all over the country, and experienced both its beauty and its extreme poverty.
She was particularly struck by some local children that she befriended who were selling chocolates by the Rio Dulce. She was heartbroken to learn that these children would stop going to school after 5th grade because of a lack of available resources. That they would spend their days selling chocolates and caring for siblings, and despite long, hard days they would go home to limited food, unsanitary water and dirt floors to sleep on. Yet, despite their limited means, these Guatemalan children smiled and played, and even though they had very little, they were very giving, taking her family to their grandmother’s sweet shop and giving them treats.
Dasha become a student ambassador for Guatemala Service Projects, Inc., to pro-actively change the lives of youth in Guatemala. With access to educational resources, improved water supply, and availability to medicine, Dasha hopes to prevent disease, promote health and wellness, and improve the lives and outcome for the children and communities in Guatemala.
Please support Dasha in making this positive change.
Dasha has three objectives:
To organize a collection of Spanish-language children’s books that will be delivered to one of the five existing school libraries supported by the nonprofit. 113 books have been collected so far! If you have access to used Spanish books to aid in the effort, please contact Dasha to arrange a pickup/dropoff, or send them directly to us by shopping from Dasha’s Amazon wish list:
Guatemala Service Projects, PO Box 441, Oconomowoc WI 53066
To purchase five water filters at $110 each. This will provide five families with a filter that will give them clean drinking water for a long time. There is a 10 year lifespan per filter. In addition to drastically improving their general health, it will save the families both time and money in acquiring firewood and boiling their water.
To raise the funds to host a well-child clinic complete with doctor, all laboratory testing, nutrition, height, weight and vision analysis, thorough check-up, and any follow-up medications needed to treat parasites or other things found. The cost of this clinic is $5000 but there will be no cost to any of the preschool-age children nor their families that it is meant to benefit. The clinic will be hosted by a doctor from CAP Chupol on site at the clinic we constructed in Panimaché Quinto Bajo in the municipality of Chichicastenango this December, 2022. In addition to the local doctor and his nursing assistant, we will offer this as a clinical training opportunity to the four students following a nursing track in our scholarship program. What a treat it will be for those four high school students to have the “real-world” experience to validate or confirm their interest in nursing!
The “right” opportunity arose when I learned about a travel opportunity for adoptive families which would include volunteer work and cultural sightseeing. Being members of that team had a profound impact on me, Lillian and Andrew. Not only were we able to make a real connection to our son’s birthplace, but we met incredibly warm and generous people, all of whom we now consider to be a part of our “family.” In addition to the volunteer work I shared with the Team, I also was able to “give back” by performing as my alter ego, “Farfel the Clown” at a barbecue for children of The Backyard School. It will remain one the proudest and happiest memories of my life.