Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing Friends of Cozumel volunteers and donors who are mothers and grandmothers. Mother’s Day is also a time to recognize “It takes a village” to care for family members of all ages. We’d also like to honor all the aunts and special friends who are not mothers including our sisters, Phyllis and Lori, who share their love and support with their nieces/nephews as well as Cozumel children. Later today we’ll be joining Vida Abundante Church for a special Mother’s Day celebration. ~ Karen and Larry
Remembrances of Mother’s Day in Cozumel . . .
We visited Margarita (mother at left), her husband and their four children just before they went to a school Mother’s Day program. Margarita’s family lives in one room apartment with a patio. The children receive backpacks with school supplies and a pair of athletic shoes as part of our School Project. Shirley Larsen, a Friends of Cozumel mission volunteer from California, helped them start container gardening in February. Margarita was excited to receive a couple of additional plants for Mother’s Day as well as a baked pastry to share with the family.
Friends of Cozumel volunteers grew cherry tomato plants, Spanish oregano and various ornamental potted plants to give as Mother’s Day gifts to six families. April’s labor of love each year is to put together personal gifts of hygiene, beauty products, make-up samples and other goodies in decorative bags to give to a dozen mothers and grandmothers of families FOC supports. Many of them are mothers caring for children with disabilities and/or single mothers supporting their family. It is a special treat for these moms because most of them don’t have the funds to be able to buy nice soap, shampoo, toothpaste, body lotion, etc.
It was so fun to see the pride that the younger children in Jose’s family had when they arrived home from school and raced to give their mother a gift they made in class. Lili is mother of four children (back center holding photo); Francesca is mother of four (at right) and Antonia (seated in center) is their grandmother.