San Pedro Belize beach pictures

New Cafeteria

We all know the connection between good nutrition and education. So it was a great cause for celebration yesterday with the opening of the new cafeteria at the R.C. School. R.C. School kids will now have hot breakfasts and lunches as well as snacks. This long awaited day is very exciting to the 900 students and parents – the cafeteria project has had many stops and starts but the results are worth the wait.

Backtrack to 2009 – the San Pedro Social Club gave the Calender Club a donation towards building a cafeteria. This was a big undertaking – starting with removing the existing shell and rebuilding from the ground up. It took a lot of volunteers and more fundraising efforts. Progress was slow but Katy Eggert and Eve Dirnback made sure the project was not forgotten. A big round of applause goes out to everyone who donated time and money to make this possible.

Eve would like to send a heart thank you to each and everyone who listened and gave her moral support as well. In the near future they will have an official grand opening with special guests. All the wonderful people involved deserve to be a part of this as all have made a difference for the children who attend the Roman Catholic School. These children are so wonderful and need to have a safe and healthy environment to thrive in.

Three cheers to Eve the Calendar girls and many others who have helped out in the past with the school library project and will continue to help in the future with plans to build a palapa in the school yard. So far plans for the palapa are to build it 20×30 with tables and seating so that the kids will be protected from the rain and sun – this will tie in perfectly with the new cafeteria.

Eve says it has been It has been her pleasure to have been involved and a part of San Pedro. With this upcoming project of the Palapa She will once again be fundraising so please share your support in what ever way you can and hopefully we can join together and make this happen.

Perparing food
Perparing food

 

4 picnic tables - 900 students - you do the math
4 picnic tables – 900 students – you do the math

 

R.C. school cafeteria
R.C. school cafeteria

After visiting the cafeteria to take some pictures for this post I was very please to see it was finally up and running. Everyone did a great job working together to make it happen. I could not help but be slightly saddened as I know the size of the cafeteria is not nearly big enough for the amount of kids that attend the school. I hope that will one day this will change – with 900 kids they definitely need some industrial cooking equipment.

Meanwhile if you are looking for a good cause to help in San Pedro this one gets my vote. They will likely need to start with some basics and get cutlery for cooking and eating- plastic – plates bowls – and glasses. If you are coming down and happen to have spare room in your suitcase please consider a trip to your local dollar store. If you are already here and want to support the local economy the plastic bucket stores all sell inexpensive plastic kitchen stuff.

6 thoughts on “New Cafeteria

  1. tacogirl says:

    I think Carol Bab is the new minister of Education but not 100% on that. Not sure about contact info maybe somehow through Google or you can ask Eve she may be able to help find out through R.C. School. Understandable about Baggage Fee’s.

  2. Amy says:

    How can I get in touch with minister of ed to find out. Maybe I will just bring a bag that can be left behind as well. Just trying to avoid baggage fees for my trip. But regardless I will figure some way to bring or ship some items they need.

  3. Maureen says:

    TG – I was told by the customs guys at BZE last year that you can contact the minister of education and they can give a waiver for duty when bringing in donations, I bet this would be true for shipping too, at least I hope it would be. It’s amazing how many people help the children of SP!

  4. tacogirl says:

    Hi Amy I will put you in touch with Eve by email and see. Not sure what kind of duty they charge on stuff like that (if it is high it may not be worth it) and who to ship it too. Thanks for offer to help.

  5. Amy says:

    Tacogirl, is it possible to ship items down to someone that are needed for the new cafeteria? I don’t want to have to bring an extra bag when we come in june but would love to help. Let me know and I will go shopping……my favorite passtime by the way. 🙂

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