Christmas 2018
26 Sep
Dear Friends, Supporters and Volunteers of FHF Mexico, Inc.,
We are pleased to announce that because of the generosity and hard work of all of you as volunteers and financial supporters, FHF Mexico, Inc. and its predecessor non-profit entity have completed more than 80 houses, a community cafeteria, building for down syndrome boys to build piñatas, a dental clinic and a medical clinic in Rocky Point. Thank you “y muchimas gracias!”
Because Christmas is on Tuesday this year, our construction schedule will be different from years past. We know that some of you prefer to spend Christmas morning at home with your family and then drive to Rocky Point in the afternoon; however, as you can see from the following schedule, this year Christmas Day will be very busy for all of us in Rocky Point.
The Christmas 2018 house building project in Rocky Point will begin on Monday morning, December 24, 2018 and continue through Wednesday, December 26, 2018. Please plan on arriving in Rocky Point Saturday or Sunday, December 22rd or 23rd, so you can begin work on Monday morning, December 24th. We will be working with the folks that operate the San Rafael Community Center where we have already built a an outdoor cafeteria, a house for the teacher and a medical and dental clinic. In this area, we will be building two of our typical houses that will be reconfigured for K-3 classrooms.
On Christmas morning, we will finish all the blockwork on the classrooms/houses and, in the afternoon, we will prepare and participate in celebrating a Christmas program and feed approximately 400-500 people that live in the area of San Rafael.
Wednesday we will work on and finish the roof and interior framing for the classrooms, present a house that was built during last year’s project to a family and have our volunteer Fiesta at Las Palomas. This will be a very busy and active three days.
If enough volunteers are committed to donate funds and work on houses during this time frame, we can also begin and finish the shell of two additional houses in this area.
We have the capacity to utilize all of our tools, equipment and scaffolding to build four (4) houses at the same time from December 24‑26. Many families have already contacted us to express interest in contributing financially and working on the project this year. In an effort to be fair to those that want to participate, we will accept volunteers that desire to participate in the order in which the financial contributions are received and volunteer worker commitments are made.
We have learned that the ideal number of people working on one house is 40-50 and that the cost to build one house is about $35,000. Assuming that each family has an average of 5 workers, that would mean we would have approximately 10 families on each house. Consequently, in order to raise enough money to construct one house, each family should donate $3,500 so that we will have enough money to completely finish each of the houses. We do not want to start work on a house if there is not enough money available to complete the entire house. Also, if one family has more than five workers, that family should increase its financial donation by $750 per volunteer worker so we don’t end up with a disproportionate number of volunteer workers and not enough money to complete the house.
Our goal for this year is to have 180-200 committed volunteer workers and to raise $140,000. Many volunteers have wanted to do more to help FHF Mexico, Inc. in serving our Mexican friends and neighbors. This year we would ask you to make a more generous contribution than the amount outlined above so that we can purchase additional scaffolding, planks, power tools and other equipment so that we can stage and construct 5 or 6 houses at one time in the future. Any additional financial contribution you can make would be greatly appreciated. Please send your tax deductible donations, as soon as possible, by check made payable to “ FHF Mexico, Inc.” c/o Ralph Pew, 1744 South Val Vista Drive, Suite 217, Mesa, Arizona, 85204. We prefer that you send an old fashioned check by mail because we are not equipped to process credit card or PayPal donations.
Those volunteers that respond with a commitment for workers and send in their financial contributions will be added to this year’s list on a first come first served basis until we reach the maximum capacity. We would love to include everyone that wants to participate, but as you can imagine, until we have enough money to buy more equipment (tools, mixers, scaffolding etc.), we can only manage four (4) houses at one time.
After we have the completed list of volunteers for the project, we will send an email explaining details including information about lodging, meals, what to bring, and a detailed itinerary for the week. If you are planning on joining us and do not have a passport, please begin now to obtain one. Crossing the border back into the United States is much less complicated with a passport and the U.S Border Agents will expect you to have one.
Saludos, Ralph
