Happenings around campus this week

Starting again...another 10,000 pounds of rice and beans to distribute.  We have had to winnow a bit of the other great things we were adding in the past, not enough funds, and also distribute less every week.  A kind of restructuring after about four months of doing this.  

We are still receiving enough via the Milk Project to make sure those families get a bag per week, plus a few other goodies we bought for them in August (milk and granola bars), but otherwise it is going to have to drop as we try to make this last into early September, and by then hopefully as well have the corn here and able to distribute.  Prices on staples that which had been up almost 100% since March have dropped just a bit, we are hoping that will continue.  

We are still taking donations since our economic restrictions are likely to continue through that time period in some form, any "phases" we get to after getting out of the 0 we are currently in, will certainly be in place now in September. 

I'll include that link here for making donations to do more food distributions in case anyone is interested, we will be hoping to raise another $5,000 for September/October, to distribute another 500 bags.

The road work in our neighborhood has begun again.  Although most people can't work...at least they have started this again, putting some construction guys to work again.  They are digging trenches right now for sewer lines (right about where one of them are standing will be where we connect the property at some point.)  Once all that is done, eventually then they will pour concrete roads here as well.  Community transformation indeed.  When we can connect to sewers, that will be a big change for us as well...and involve some expense to reroute all our waste from where it currently goes (about three different locations right now)

We have had several reasons to tackle a few small construction projects of late, including needing some extra hands available to do some other things.  And actually as of last week, hardware stores can actually be open as well, so not only was Santos able to do the concrete work for the new garden areas around the mission house, but Soren was able to weld up some fence to protect the future flowers/berries/whatever we can get to grow there, and finish up railings on other parts of the property.  So we are trying to find any other welding projects we need him to do before he goes back to school (albeit online) in a few weeks. 

The clinic continues to fill the parking lot to overflowing almost every morning, and leaving late every afternoon (although that has improved a bit, no more leaving almost two hours late) and Oscar has been out and about some getting food to the pastors, checking with them...he spent last night in Las Botijas as well.  

So although we are still restricted...and our case count for COVID and deaths is steady, we are slowly finding some more ways we can work safely and do what we can to help in different areas.