Fundamaya Response to COVID 19

The COVID19 has wreaked havoc on the families in Guatemala and caused more hunger. 

These families that were already struggling to make ends meet now find themselves without work and food. 

While everyone is afraid to get COVID 19, the most imminent danger facing them now is hunger and starvation. 

The families that we work with depend on the money that they make daily to be able to provide food to their families. 

They don't have this work now.  

Even people who have never had to ask for help with food before are asking for help. 

At Fundamaya we are so grateful for all the donations that we have received to be able to provide as much food as possible to families in need.

For the past 6 weeks we have delivered a lot of food to needy families.

Thank you for your support which has made it possible for us to help so many families.

This week alone we delivered food to more than 550 families.  If there are 5 people in each family ( some have a lot more) then this week alone we provided food for a possible 2,750 people.   Thank you for making this happen.

We are also aware that a lot of elderly are home alone, scared, and without any support.

We are trying to make sure that these elderly are not left alone at home and starving. 

The Fundamaya Elderly Care Program is delivering food every two weeks to the Elderly in our program.

This is food for them to cook at home as we have had to close our center that provides a hot meal daily during the Pandemic. 

The children in the Fundamaya preschool are receiving food. 

The parents have this food delivered to them every two weeks.

The children are also receiving packets of simple activities to keep them occupied at home. 

We are also reaching out to the Elderly in other communities and helping them as well. 

Here are some of the photos from some of the areas we delivered food. 

There is a lot of organizing, weighing, and packing that goes into distributing this food, and the staff at Fundamaya have worked very hard. We are thankful to the volunteers who came along and helped us!

Below you can see our teachers from the preschool, librarians, social workers, and so many others packing food. 

Our staff has worked very hard during this time. We gave them the opportunity to say that they did not want to work during the COVID crisis as the government was telling everyone to stay home.  They knew they would be paid whether they came to work or not but every single one of them agreed that this was the time that the community needed us more than ever.  As a Humanitarian organization we were able to get special authorization to be able to deliver food to communities.  However,  we are restricted to only a few staff in our trucks, so it is a lot of work for the staff members who are out delivering food.

We have delivered food to Jaibalito. 

Families in Panajachel.

Two of the elderly recipients who received food in San Andres packing their food to take home. 

Receiving a bag of food at our office in Jucanya, Panajachel.

Bags waiting to be packed in the truck.

Thank you to the Bomberos of Panajachel who helped load the food and distribute it to the people.

We have worked with the Bomberos to deliver masks to people who don't have them. 

Long lines of people waiting outside the Fundamaya office to get food.

Food is delivered in San Jorge la Laguna.

This man was so happy to get a bag of corn to make his tortillas

Food being delivered to the elderly in San Andres.

Apart from distributing food to as many people as we can, we have also continued to produce and distribute masks free to whoever needs one. We thank the people who donated to the Community Mask Project and Catherine Todd for the masks that she has produced for Fundamaya.  Many people have received masks and were grateful as it is obligatory to wear masks in Guatemala.

In the meantime, we are also working with families who have medical needs, families who are being evicted because they cannot pay their rent, families who are afraid of losing their homes as they cannot pay their mortgages. It is a very stressful time for people everywhere in the world but in our part of the world in Guatemala, the stress of the very basic need of having food to feed your family is the biggest immediate problem that they are facing.

This week when our staff was in a village giving out food, two mothers came to them but the food was already gone.  They had tears in their eyes.  They hadn't been able to feed their children that day.  They told Gloria that they had gone to the mountains to search for herbs to make a soup but so many people were doing it that there were no herbs left.  This is a desperate time here. 

 We are grateful that we are here to do this work.  We are grateful for your support that makes this possible. 

 The need is ever-increasing in Guatemala with the economy on a complete standstill.  Please help with any amount that you can to help us to continue to provide food for hungry families. 

Hoping you and your loved ones are safe and well,

Sharon