November 24, 2015

Home and Hope for the Holidays

This year will be the very first time this family will wake up in a safe, warm, comfortable home.

Aldo and Zulma live in Peru – but for them every day is a day of giving thanks – because this year, a friend like you gave them an amazing gift: A NEW HOME.

Their old home, like most of the homes in their frigid mountain village, was so small, you couldn’t stand up inside, so cold you had to wear winter clothes and so badly ventilated the smoke would make you cough…

Doing what people had done for centuries, to survive as farmers, in the extreme weather of the Andes Mountains: Aldo and Zulma built a house from available materials – stone for walls, straw for their roof. It was as small as possible to conserve all the warmth they could, from body heat, and from cooking over an open fire. With no windows and only one door.

This is why four of every five people in their village are sick with respiratory ailments. Nearly two out of every five children born in their village die before their 6th birthday.

But you and I have the chance to prevent this tragedy from happening to more families.

It takes just $2,500 to build a home in a village like Aldo and Zulma’s. Not as a handout – but through a partnership with Esperanca.

Aldo and Zulma happily agreed to make more than 4,000 adobe bricks – recruiting friends and family to help during the very short “good weather” season.

They also paid for part of the supplies – no small feat when the average wage in their village is less than $2 a day. Thanks to friends like you, it happened.

You enabled us to bring in the tools, the expertise, the hope… Aldo and Zulma and even their children went to work on their new home. They worked day and night. Bricks were made, walls were painted….

You and I can hardly imagine their joy; to have separate bedrooms for the parents and children, an indoor kitchen, an indoor bathroom with actual running water! Solar power lets them take a warm shower- something utterly unimaginable even one year ago! They now have a home where they are sheltered from the elements, double insulated walls now give them more living space without losing precious heat. They can actually stand upright in their home now for the first time in their lives.

Aldo and Zulma made their dream come true. They are learning a new way to live thanks to you.

Home and Hope for the Holidays

This year will be the very first time this family will wake up in a safe, warm, comfortable home.

Aldo and Zulma live in Peru – but for them every day is a day of giving thanks – because this year, a friend like you gave them an amazing gift: A NEW HOME.

Their old home, like most of the homes in their frigid mountain village, was so small, you couldn’t stand up inside, so cold you had to wear winter clothes and so badly ventilated the smoke would make you cough…

Doing what people had done for centuries, to survive as farmers, in the extreme weather of the Andes Mountains: Aldo and Zulma built a house from available materials – stone for walls, straw for their roof. It was as small as possible to conserve all the warmth they could, from body heat, and from cooking over an open fire. With no windows and only one door.

This is why four of every five people in their village are sick with respiratory ailments. Nearly two out of every five children born in their village die before their 6th birthday.

But you and I have the chance to prevent this tragedy from happening to more families.

It takes just $2,500 to build a home in a village like Aldo and Zulma’s. Not as a handout – but through a partnership with Esperanca.

Aldo and Zulma happily agreed to make more than 4,000 adobe bricks – recruiting friends and family to help during the very short “good weather” season.

They also paid for part of the supplies – no small feat when the average wage in their village is less than $2 a day. Thanks to friends like you, it happened.

You enabled us to bring in the tools, the expertise, the hope… Aldo and Zulma and even their children went to work on their new home. They worked day and night. Bricks were made, walls were painted….

You and I can hardly imagine their joy; to have separate bedrooms for the parents and children, an indoor kitchen, an indoor bathroom with actual running water! Solar power lets them take a warm shower- something utterly unimaginable even one year ago! They now have a home where they are sheltered from the elements, double insulated walls now give them more living space without losing precious heat. They can actually stand upright in their home now for the first time in their lives.

Aldo and Zulma made their dream come true. They are learning a new way to live thanks to you.