Our BIGGEST Day Ever!

Over the last few days we prepared almost 300 school supply kits.  Today we gave them all away!
WHAT A GREAT DAY!

At 10 am today (Saturday) we loaded 3 pick up trucks and 10 people (including Santa) and went to a place on the island called Los Fincas, which means "The Farm".  As we arrived today we could hardly believe how these folks live.  Shelley and I have been coming to Cozumel for 20 years, and this is the first time we ever knew of this place...

That said, there were smiles EVERYWHERE today, as Santa and his elf's give the children toys, t-shirts, Beany Babies, candies and SCHOOL SUPPLIES...

Shelley spent her birthday morning in the muddy jungle roads giving away school supplies and toys with Santa and the cutest Elf ever (our daughter Kelly) ! Later in the day we went to the Fireman's house to give out hotdogs and presents! She said it was her best birthday ever !

Below are some pictures that we took as we shared what we had, with all the children we could find...

Our school supplies - Ready to go!

The crew at our first house - Ready to GO!

Santa & his Elf's

Mike C, driving the truck with all the stuff in it...

Me driving this truck with water and spare candy....

 Stacy was behind me driving the red truck.  She went down side roads and brought kids out to the main road to see Santa...

Santa and Corky (the Elf)

Kelly - our beautiful Elf...

(left to right) Kathy, Santa (Ron), and Corky

someone REALLY loves Santa....

The kids just kept coming....

This is the children's reality.... Count your blessings....

Elf Tom guarding the stuff....

Happy KIDS!

Stacy delivering a bunch of kids...

Elf Margaret handing out scribblers

Everyone LOVES Santa!

The roads were VERY wet and muddy...

With all our supplies gone we went back to town tired, but happy that we found these wonderful kids....

Cozumel, Mexico

We arrived in Cozumel, Mexico a few weeks ago.  While much of our time here in Mexico will be personal, we knew that we wanted to share some school supplies with some children here on the island.

So, this week we spent time preparing to distribute what may be the largest amount of school supplies so far. We have learned of an area on the island where there is no power, no running water and no sanitation systems...  There are also hundreds of children who don't see much of Santa at Christmas...  

We have learned that Santa will be visiting these kids on Saturday morning.  Shelley and I enlisted the help of a few of Santa's elfs and have prepared more than 200 gifts of school supplies.... The ladies from our church made a whole bunch of beautiful pencil cases, but there wasn't enough, so we purchased some nice plastic bags and some ribbon and were able to make up the number we need (hopefully)...  Sadly, no matter how many we make, it won't be enough....

The good news is that all the staff at Papa Hogs were more than willing to help put our gifts together...
There is no reason not to have fun... 

Left to right:Eddie, Francisco, Jose, Margaret & Shelley

Kathy (one of Santa's Elf's) and Shelley...

You know who....

Our new packaging...

More pictures and story soon...

Our Mission in Cuba!

 We spent a few weeks in Cuba and visited four schools.
 We donated about 600 pounds of school supplies to some very happy children.
We recruited volunteers from the marinas to help us carry the supplies.

 This principle was very happy to have us visit and donate. The school is a little remote so they seldom see people like us.

The different grades wear different color scarfs.
This school had 147 students from 5 to 11 yrs old.

Backpacks are empty again. A successful day !


The school bus is missing its front door.

Ready To Go!

We are in Florida and now getting ready to leave for Cuba.

This will be our first stop where we hope to distribute school supplies...  We won't have any internet while in Cuba so as soon as we get to Mexico we will update this blog with stories and pictures...

Thank you too all who got the supplies we needed to us!

Blessings,
Kyle & Shelley

Our You Tube Videos....

Just before we left Canada we visited a number of service clubs hoping one or more of them would help us in some way.  In preparation for this Shelley and I made a video that explained our work and our goals...  Obviously we didn't do a very good job, as NONE of the service clubs we presented to thought our work was worthwhile enough to support.  Oh well, we will keep doing what we do, with our without service clubs...

In the last month our churches have been busy collecting stuff that we hope to receive in Florida sometime in October.  We will take the first load to Cuba and hope to receive the second load in Cozumel Mexico at Christmas...

By the way, here are the links to our two videos.  Essentially they are the same, only one is much shorter and contains much less personal stuff.

The Long One (12 minutes):

The Short One (4 minutes):

Feel free to share either of these to whoever you like...

|Cheers,
Kyle & Shelley

We Found Some GREAT Stuff...

Shelley and I are on our way through New York. At the moment we are in a little town called Waterford NY. Today we went for a bike ride and found a Dollar Sore going out of business.... They had 44 children's paint sets and 30 hand fishing reels... we bought them ALL for $50! After we got to the boat we shrunk wrapped them and found a home for them until we get to Cuba... Here are some pictures:

We Are On Our Way!

As planned, we departed from Hamilton, Ontario at about 8am on July 1st 2014.  After 9 years of planning and about 4 years of actual preparation, we have begun what we hope is a journey of a lifetime...

We are making our way down the eastern seaboard of the United States over the next 4 months.  The main reason we are taking so long is that we are going to do our best to avoid hurricanes and rest up before getting busy with our new ministry.

Right to Write is a culmination of many hundreds of hours of effort by many people.  Thank you so much to the team at my church for committing to support us as we get going.  We are planning a major effort to gather supplies in July and August while the back to school sales are on.

Just before we go from Florida to Cuba we hope to receive a skid full of school supplies that we will be able to distribute in Cuba in November...  Our plan is to park the boat in Varadero and distribute the goods with the help of aa local driver who we hope to find when we get there.

In early December we plan to go from Cuba to Mexico and spend Christmas with some of our family and friends....  In the new year we will work our way south from Cozumel, Mexico through the western Caribbean toward Panama next spring.

Please follow along as we journey to schools all over the world....

Blessings,
Kyle & Shelley