Donations make big impact for Guatemalan village
By Andrew Kelly, Megan Guilfoyle and Ty Windy
IV Leader Staff
Illinois Valley Community College students have a lot to be
proud of. No, they haven’t found a cure for cancer, but to a small area in
Guatemala, they are life savers.
After Hurricane Stan hit Guatemala in October 2005, IVCC’s
World Language Organization, advised by world language instructor Anna Marie
Pietrolanardo, decided to hold a donation drive to help aid the country.
The WLO raised about $300 and sent it to the Lake Atitlan
Region of Guatemala, where Pat Cole, a retired sociology teacher at IVCC, has
been living and donating her time to numerous volunteer organizations.
Cole recently returned to the Illinois Valley to pick up
books and supplies and visited IVCC to explain the importance of the WLO
donation.
“The $300 raised was enough to clear the area of garbage and
waste that would cause typhoid, something that could wipe out the whole
village,” Cole said.
Over 300 homes were lost from this disaster because of the
heavy rain and falling boulders, according to Cole.
Cole explained how torrential rain created a raging river
that engulfed house after house as the river beds collapsed and eventually put
Cole and 12 Guatemalan children’s lives at risk.
Cole explained her fast thinking emergency plan as, “I tied a
rope around each child’s waist and connected all of us as we walked through
chest high mud, until we could make it to safety at higher grounds.”
After the hurricane was over, Cole and other community
members dug mud for over two weeks to attempt to clear roadways. When
communication was finally re-established Cole contacted IVCC to see if students
could raise any money to help the recovery, and that’s where WLO stepped up.
Besides the $300 collected for Cole’s village, the WLO
members continued to raise money for their organization as well as the
devastated area of Guatemala.
On the WLO website, Pietrolonardo states, “In addition to the
service project for Aguas Escondidas, WLO participated in the IVCC Staff Arts &
Crafts Fair on Nov. 17, 2005 with a beautiful array of MayaWorks Fair Trade
weaving and beadwork handmade by the artisans of the Lake Atitlán region of
Guatemala. Our proceeds at this event allowed WLO to send an additional $1,032
to the communities so hard hit by the Hurricane, and to retain a small profit
for student activities in the coming year.”
In Guatemala, relief efforts still continue. Cole is currently working with
OXFAM and the United Nations helping with the aid for Hurricane Stan.
The effort is a labor of love for Cole, who has traveled to
the area extensively in the past 15 years, and then decided to make it her home
when she retired from IVCC two years ago.
Cole and her Las Manos Foundation are currently constructing
banana circles that will clean the dirty, grey water of anything else that may
be lurking within Guatemala’s water. In addition, they are working to rebuild a
riverbed along with replanting bamboo and eucalyptus, a majority of which were
damaged from Hurricane Stan.
Besides the recovery work from the hurricane, Cole has worked
on many programs while she has been in Guatemala. These include a health
program, an abandoned baby program, a recycling program, a school for native
children and an international school for children of international workers.
Both Cole and Pietrolonardo continue to seek donations to aid
in the relief effort.
On Pietrolonardo’s Web site, www.ivcc.edu/Pietrolonardo, a
WLO link is posted where individuals can donate money to Pro Logo NGO, which
will send money directly to the disaster area relief.
Another avenue one may go to help the relief efforts is to
contact Pat Cole at colepatricia@yahoo.com and discuss the possibility of
traveling to Guatemala to help clean up or even help educate young children
through the Las Manos Foundation.