Hope Jackson of Vinalhaven spent four months last winter volunteering in Los Talpetates, El Salvador. She has since co-founded the El Salvador Education Project with the object of sending children from Los Talpetates to high school and college. Jackson recently received a $3060 grant from the Ten Dollar Club to bring medical supplies to the health clinic she worked in in Los Talpetates.

“Dear Friends,” she writes. “Welcome to your April 2006 report for The $10 Club.”

“Like other children who come in, the boy had trouble breathing and very low energy. Everyone here has a respiratory infection at some level…. Mother needed medicine for child with sore throat and cough, both of which are extremely common here with all the dust…. Ten year old girl came in crying. She was overheated and shaking, her hands were clenched and her eyes rolled back. She hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast or had anything to drink…. Brenda got calcium pills for her mom; the four dollar price made it so they can’t buy them very often…. Patient has had infection for 3 days; he has rapid shallow breaths and is lethargic from not sleeping at night…. A week old baby has horribly peeling dry skin from dehydration because the family he was born into lives more than a four hour walk from the nearest water source….”

For more information on Hope Jackson’s work in El Salvador please see www.freewebs.com/elsalvadoreducation. For information about the Ten Dollar Club visit www.tendollarclub.org.