Help us continue changing lives!

A candid shot from one of the builds this summer

The June and July builds were both a success, and now two more families have a place they can be proud to call home.

Wish you had been part of it?! Well now is your chance!

Cambiando Vidas plans to build their 18th house this October!

October 17 -25 Jack Norris and Anne Holliday will be leading a team in Las Charcas.

If you are interested in joining, or simply want to learn more about helping us change lives please contact cambiandovidasdr@gmail.com

House Build: June 28 – July 4

A build team, lead by Mark Grossman, and comprised of a mix of teenagers, families, and individual volunteers is currently working hard in the Dominican Republic building a home for the Villegas Rodriguez family.

Family Profile

The Villegas Rodriguez Family

Melania Villegas, known in the community as Ñen,  is 38 years old and has lived in the community of Las Charcas de Garabito her whole life. Ñen works in a bakery in the city of San Juan. She has three children: Judy, who is twenty, is in 12^th grade and has a child who is five named Rudy; Alex, who is 16, wants to be a farmer; Anthony, known as Piloto in the community, is 13 years old and hopes to become a baseball player.

The family has lived in the community of Las Charcas their entire life, but they have always dreamed of having a house of their own. When they heard about the house program of Cambiando Vidas was starting to work in the community they got really excited and they were one of the first families who applied to the program. They have been active in helping Cambiando Vidas since the very first house build.

Bedroom of their old house.

The family’s current house is about 350 square feet. They have  one large room that serves as a kitchen, living room, and dining room.  There are three small bedrooms and though they have electricity, they have no indoor plumbing and use a latrine outside as their bathroom.  The house is made of concrete and corrugated aluminum and it is in poor condition.

The average income Ñen and his family receive per month is around 11,000 pesos ($314 US). At times the family receives money from the children’s father. The family looks forward to starting a new life in a new home with the help of the build group, community members, and generous donations from the volunteers’ friends and family.

If you are interested in sponsoring a build or volunteering please e-mail us, or, as always, visit our homepage.

A Minute With Mark

Mark and Fifa, a proud new homeowner in Paraiso

Mark Grossman, dedicated team leader of the upcoming June and July builds, was able to give us some insight on how he first got involved, and what inspires him continue to be a passionate advocate for CV:

How did you first get involved with Cambiando Vidas?

Chris Goodrich, the President of CV, is one of my neighbors. After he talked my wife into going on a build, he talked me into leading a build (even though I had never done anything like it before), and four months later the team I helped put together arrived in Santo Domingo. I really had very little faith that it would all come together, but everything fell into place in its own time and in unexpected ways.

What do you do when NOT helping out with CV?

I have four kids ages 5-16 that keep me busy and I teach fourth grade at Lewisboro Elementary School in South Salem, NY.

How many builds have you participated in? What made you want to become a build leader?

I have participated in two builds. Before I got home from the first build, the pieces had already started falling into place for me to head back to the DR to help with another house. So, four weeks after getting home from one build, I was on my way back down for a second. I guess I agreed to be a build leader because I needed to get out of the tiny little box I was living in between work and home and do something different, something that was meaningful in a way I had never experienced before. Now I want to help other people put together their resources so that they can have the experience of providing a family with a home and discovering a side of themselves that they may not be familiar with now.

Build team - Summer 2008

What is your favorite part of the build process?

My favorite part actually ended up being the people I met. The people who live in the villages we served were amazingly welcoming. I was moved by their simplicity of life, and their gratefulness for things that I have long taken for granted. Also, I made connections with the people who were on both of the teams that will stay with me forever. They all feel like brothers and sisters. In many ways, I have an extended family of teammates now. We all got to share in one another’s successes, failures, laughter and frustrations. And we all came to care deeply for one another. Aside from the people, my favorite part of the process was shoveling gravel. Nothing like it.

Who will you be taking on the June and July builds?

In June, I will be going with five teenage boys, a family of four, and six adults. The July team is not yet completely defined, but with the help of my friend Chris MacDonald, who came to Las Charcas last summer with me, we are assembling funding and volunteers. So if anyone is interested, they can let me know.

What are you most looking forward to about returning to the Dominican Republic?

I can’t wait see the local people again. They were all so welcoming, and it will be nice to see faces I know from last summer again when we arrive on the work site. I am also looking forward to the sounds of the DR. The motorcycles and horns in downtown San Juan de la Maguana in particular. There is an amazing life in those sounds. Above all, though, I am looking forward to eating dinner with the family we are building for in the house that we all spent the week building together.

If you could pick one aspect of the Dominican culture that is your favorite, what would it be and why?

The music and the dancing. Bachata and meringue have become my favorite types of music. Even though I don’t speak Spanish, I feel something in the music that does not exist in any other music I know. It is so layered with passion, from the bass lines to the woodblock, every note and beat is filled with this vibe that just makes me feel like I want to be a part of the music. And learning how to dance to bachata and meringue a little allows you to actually be a part of the music.

Cross-Cultural Teamwork

This might be tough – How would you sum up your experience with Cambiando Vidas in 20 words or less?

CV helped me start the process of re-framing my life.

Raw
Heartbreaking
Hope-making
Re-defining
and re-connecting

Thank you to Mark for taking the time to share with us! Please contact the Cambiando Vidas team at cambiandovidasdr@gmail.com  if you have any additional questions, or are interested in joining the build in July!

Preschool Receives Toy Donations

Westminster Nursery School, a preschool in Pittsburgh, Pa., recently donated three boxes of toys to the preschool classroom in Las Charcas. Toys included building blocks, musical instruments and enrichment games, and will be delivered by the upcoming build teams in June and July. This will be a wonderful addition to the classroom, along with the furniture and supplies provided by another donor.  Thank you to the school for sharing with us!

Look for more updates on the preschool coming soon!

Happy Anniversary Cambiando Vidas!

Cambiando Vidas proudly celebrates its second anniversary this month! Over the past two years 15 homes have been built in the communities of Paraiso and Las Charcas de Garabito. Already in 2009, five new families have received homes, and there are several builds already planned for the coming months (June, July, October…e-mail cambiandovidasdr@gmail.com if you are interested in sponsoring or joining a build).

Special thanks to teams from Deerfield Academy, Connecticut College, Elon University, Canada, and a small group from the United States for their time and service this year.

The preschool, set to open in September 2009 is coming together. After a long ocean journey, furniture and other supplies from a generous donor arrived and have been unloaded in the classroom. Updates to come!

Cambiando Vidas could not have seen this milestone without the help of its volunteers and donors. We hope to continue our contributions to these deserving Dominican communities and families. With your help, whether a monetary donation, or physical volunteer hours, we look toward a bright future.

As always, visit our web site for more information about how you can help.

Video – Elon University March 2009 Build

Thanks so much to Tristan Milder, a member of the Elon University build team for putting together this video and sharing it with us. The team of 10 students and 2 faculty members spent their spring break building a house for a deserving family in Las Charcas, Dominican Republic.

Internship opportunity.

Interested in interning abroad this summer, while at the same time building hope and changing the lives of communities in the Dominican Republic? Cambiando Vidas is offering a 6-week internship this summer!

The intern would help prepare for the build in June, continue setting up the preschool, and teach English classes to students in the community. The cost is $1500 which includes room, board, transportation, and a night in Santo Domingo.

If you are interested please contact Rebecca Tate at cambiandovidasdr@gmail.com.

See the change.

A compilation of all of our volunteer testimonials, part of the “Changed Lives” section of our blog, showed that “Life” was the most common word used when volunteers told about their experience working with Cambiando Vidas. Very fitting, right?

Elon University build a success!

The Elon University team found success not only in building a house during their spring break trip March 21-28, but also building lasting relationships with fellow students, and community members in Las Charcas. Pictures and student testimonials to come! Stay tuned!

Pre-school update

Students peering out the classroom window.

Cambiando Vidas, besides building houses, is dedicated to bettering the community and the life of its members.  Establishing a preschool in the community of Las Charcas is the latest endeavor the organization has taken on.  Currently in Las Charcas, and many small communities in the Dominican Republic, children do not attend school until the age of five or six.  When they do enroll in school, the teachers must start at a lower level of learning than most children entering elementary school because the students have not received any prior formal schooling.  Often the children do not like school because for the first years of their lives they were free to go about as they please and did not have a schedule or rules to follow.

Cambiando Vidas’ goal is to open a preschool to give young children an opportunity for early development and learn to love school as an opportunity and a privilege, rather than a nuisance or chore.  The idea is that in order to help pay for enrollment and keep actual tuition costs down the students’ families would volunteer to work at the school, provide snacks, or help clean.  In this way they would be investing not money, but time and effort into the school, and they would be able to see first hand the benefit it is providing for their children.

Funding from outside the community would come from sponsorships or donations from schools, groups, or individuals in the U.S.  Ideally, preschool classes in the U.S. could be paired up with one of the preschool classes in Las Charcas and they could establish a relationship in which they can learn about eachothers cultures and contribute and gain more than just monetary value.

Volunteers unloading donated furniture.

Currently Cambiando Vidas has received a large shipment of supplies for the preschool including desks, chairs, chalk boards, a television, a basketball hoop and much more.  There was such an outpouring of donations that the original location for the classroom had to be changed from the community center to a larger room at the local elementary school.

With all of the supplies delivered, the classroom is being set up and organized and details regarding teachers and enrollment are underway.  It is hoped that the school will have it’s first day of class before the end of the year.

Stay tuned for more updates on the progress of the preschool.