Have you picked your "Christmas Charity?"

Each year my family picks a "charity" to donate to. This will be the first year we donate to something outside of the US. I am really encouraging you to do the same. Why? Well...it's simple, this country has given me, my family, my extended family, and my friends something that is priceless...Mikayla Faith. Christmas is full of traditions in Guatemala very different from our own, but many, MANY families cannot afford to be a part of this tradition as the people in Guatemala are very poverty stricken. A mere $30 donation will provide a family with the opportunity to have a wonderful, FILLING Christmas. THIRTY DOLLARS. Probably a single toy you buy for your Guatemalan Sweetie, or children if you have not adopted, costs this much. Please consider giving back to Mikayla's homeland. The people who do this are a very well-renowned organization extremely committed to helping the people of Guatemala. Please, just think about it. Here is the information:

This year we again would like to offer you the opportunity to sponsor one or more Guatemalan families with a CHRISTMAS TAMALE FOOD BASKET. We have many families, mostly single, abandoned & widowed mothers, who simply cannot afford to provide the traditional Christmas celebration meal for their family. A tamale is a traditional indigenous food consisting of steam-cooked corn meal dough with or without a filling. Tamales can be filled with meats and sliced chilli's or any preparation according to taste. The tamale is generally wrapped in a corn husk or plantain leaves before cooking, and during Christmas holidays, tamales of rice flour are a special treat for Guatemalans. The preparation time of this type of tamale is long, due to the amount of time required to cook down and thicken the rice flour base.

One food basket costs US$30 and will provide a Christmas Tamale celebration meal for a hungry and needy family of 12 or more.The food for the Christmas basket will include:A bottle of oil and 15 lbs of rice to make the tamalesa loaf of bread with which they eat the tamales at midnight, 5lbs of meat, 1lb of coffee, a block of drinking chocolate (a traditional drink taken at midnight) raisins for the tamales, grapes, tomatoes, apples and sugarleaves to wrap the tamales, cloves, pepper, sesame and pumpkin seeds.These are the requirements to make the midnight Christmas meal of Tamale.The plastic basket that holds all the food will also have many uses in the home such stacking and washing dishes, holding food or going to the market.

We started this project last year because it was brought to my attention that two children that we sponsor to go to school had been very miserable. These two children from San Jorge had no food in the house on Christmas Eve, they were crying because they would not have the traditional Christmas tamales to eat at midnight along with the drinking chocolate. At midnight they went from house to house hoping someone would give them a tamale. It made me wonder how many other families could also not afford to celebrate Christmas, once we started looking into it, we realized there were a lot of families who would not be able to afford to buy the ingredients for their Christmas meal.So this year once again we are hoping to give out as many baskets as we can.Last year we were fortunate enough to buy, make up and distribute 215 baskets. We are happy to say that we already have 60 baskets sponsored for this year. However, we would like nothing more than to send out more baskets than in 2006.If you would like to sponsor one or more baskets for Christmas 2007, please choose the amount and click the 'Donate' button below. This will take you to our on-line payment service which will process your credit or debit card quickly and securely. If you wish to dedicate your donation to someone, please email us on instructions@mayanfamilies.net, include your online transaction number and let us know the details of your donation. Alternatively, if you would like to send a check, please download and print this form. Once completed, please include this form with your check made payable to Mayan Families and mail to:MAYAN FAMILIES - 2609 Hartford St. San Diego, CA. U.S.A. 92110-2315. Already donated a basket or two? If so, I thank you sincerely for your donation and if you would like, I would be very grateful if you decide to forward this email to any of your friends and family who may also be interested in providing a needy family in Guatemala with a great Christmas Gift.Thank you so much for all your support. Everyone here at Mayan Families is grateful and proud to put your donation to effective use with our Christmas Tamale Basket program.
Best wishes,Sharon and the Team at Mayan Families N.B. If you wish to donate more than 5 baskets, please email us directly on instructions@mayanfamilies.net

OK...so here is a link to pictures of families getting their baskets last year:
http://www.mayanfamilies.org/CHRISTMAS%20FOOD%20BASKETS%20PHOTO

Since I can't post the "donate" button please e-mail them at the ABOVE link and they will walk you through it I am sure. Please consider this. It's so important to these families and as we sit down to our, let's face it, LAVISH, Christmas feasts here, wouldn't be it wonderful to know that a family over 3000 miles away sat down to theirs as well thanks to YOUR generosity???

EDITED TO ADD: I copied this from another blog...so please feel free to copy it and paste it to YOUR blog! Lets make it a record year!