Each Tashirat family has decided to take one of the poorest families from Santo Domingo, and help them to improve their lives and living conditions. As a family we will help in any way we can another family. Most average, 7 person families from Santo Domingo live on $50 to $80 dollars a week, which is hardly enough to send their children to school, let alone buy them shoes, clothes, toys or furnish their homes with even the bare necessities. There is no water in this town, so water must be bought from water trucks from Tepoztlán which are very expensive, making hygiene, bathing and bathrooms a luxury many cannot afford. We plan to each gather together all that we can from our own homes and give it to our Santo Domingo families. Each family will save from their family's weekly budget in order to help a family with their barest necessities, such as bathroom facilities, a door for their house, shoes for the children, food, etc.

The big kids are now actually teenagers! And they are a very busy crew. Over the past year they have gotten more involved in a myriad of after school activities and it is wonderful to see them expanding themselves in so many different ways.

Blanca, Marcos, Carlos, David and Jon continue to dance with their Hip-Hop group, which performs regularly in Tepoztlán. Most of the older children are now taking violin, viola, cello and/or piano lessons as well as music reading classes in a local music program, totally free of charge! Cristian, nearly 16, is apprenticed in a bicycle repair shop in town, where he is gaining a lot of social confidence as well as skills. Carlos and Jon continue going to the gym. Blanca and Melina have been practicing their acrobatics on the hanging cloth 6 hours a week, and Sami, Julio and Kian have joined a soccer club.

They have never had more on the go, and we have never seen them happier! Most of the older kids also have weekend jobs to help support all their interests. The more they seem to do, the more energetic and enthusiastic they are about everything.