Visit with the president of the DR

Visit of Fr. Ron and Sister Monica with the president of the DR on June 1st in his office as we seek his help to secure some property we would like.

 When the Dictator Trujillo was assassinated, the land mass he and his family had accumulated was more than 60% of the country. J F Kennedy, our president at that time, had all that land put into a trust foundation to be redistributed to the people by the government of the DR.

Our plan is to construct a softball diamond to be exchanged then for the present softball diamond in front of our school. The dream then is to construct on that property a new church, poly-technical high school, clinic and pharmacy, God willing.

Board member visit

On May 28th three members of the board, Greg Galvin, Peter Koch, and Juan Arroyo arrived with Fr.Joe Marcoux, pastor of St. Catherine's Ithaca, and Fr. Dan Mc Mullin, chaplain at Cornell University.

The group made a whirlwind, 3 day visit to the prominent projects of the foundation.

They visited the daycare at Portal de Belen, which St.Catherine's has support now for 13 years, as well as the school at Hato Nuevo, and the school and convent in Don Juan.

Also they went to the site of the new chapel and multi-use building which Cornell Hockey raised the funds for and helped raise the walls.

Cornell Hockey Team visit

Cornell hockey team members Greg, Cole, Kevin, Nick, Justin, and Andy, their coach, Mike Schafer, with his sons John and Luke and supporter, Scott Howard, arrived on May 21^st. Tony Eisenhut with his daughter Emily (who arrived a day later) and her friend Lauren also traveled to the DR at the same time to work on a project that they had raised the money to build.

 Their project was to begin construction on one building with a chapel for mass and parish events as well as a classroom/meeting room in the community of Bosque Arriba. Both of the facilities will function as hurricane shelters.

 The distance to the local school is quite far for the little ones in the area of the new chapel. Our hope is to establish preschool and 1st grade classes for them at the new facility.

 In four days they raised four walls, much to the surprise of our Dominican contractors. This group did lots of hard work in a short time.

After four days of work, the group relaxed on the beach on Saturday and Sunday, a treat which they greatly deserved.