Salute to local volunteers during Coronavirus

Our Friends of Cozumel local volunteers are truly amazing. They all continue to help us identify families with the greatest needs, assemble and/or deliver food despensas, baby supplies and health needs.  Each of them are impacted by being out-of-work or significantly reduced income so they have had to create other ways to support themselves and their families.

In this post, we would like to give special thanks to:

Pastora Mariela (L), Elena (C) and Maria (R)

Pastora Mariela, Elena and Maria

  • Vida Abundante Pastors Mariela and Salomon make and serve meals 3+ times a week to families who are out of work benefitting 150-200 youth and adults. They also serve the community by helping Friends of Cozumel deliver despensas and assist families with health needs. 
  • Elena is a mother and grandmother of her extended family of 11. She is our sewing instructor and started a home based sewing and embroidery business. As a result of Coronavirus, none of the six adults in their family are employed so they have no steady income.  However, they are all working together to make beautiful embroidered masks, promoting online and providing home delivery.
Embroidered masks made by Elena and her family
  • Maria normally cleans homes for multiple clients but her work is now reduced to two ½ days weekly. She and daughter, Sami, are a huge help in identifying and delivering food to families.
Sami with Anilu and baby

Sami

  • Sami, a junior in high school, has been a Friends of Cozumel volunteer for years. She assembles and delivers despensas. Sami is bi-lingual, a great communicator and relates well with young mothers near her age as well as seniors.
  • Photo was taken several months ago before wearing masks was mandatory

Cheesecakes for sale

  • Selling cheesecakes is a new home-based business for Carla during the stay-at-home period. Carla is the Director of Centro de Autismo, speech therapist for CRIM and CAM primaria schools and mother of 5 year old twin girls. She frequently checks in with us (Karen and Larry Pedersen) to see if we need help personally as well as delivers despensas.

Involving more local volunteers is a goal for Friends of Cozumel. We are honored to work side-by-side with the community leaders highlighted above.  We see a very encouraging trend with more adults and teens of the families Friends of Cozumel supports offering to be volunteers. Many of them are not in a position to give donations but they are very willing to share their time to help others in their community.

Thank you for reading and supporting the people of San Miguel de Cozumel, Mexico. To donate go to our page how to make a donation or via PayPal

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