Clothes Drive
DREAM Project
Support Literacy in Dominican Republic

 It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. 
Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect. 
Swami Vivekananda

SPRING CLEANING? We are collecting gently used clothing and accessories to support a literacy project in Alta Gracia, Dominican Republic. The project is run by my daughter Naomi. She will be using the items to raise funds and support the library/literacy program, and also, take the kids to the beach in Caberete. (Some have never been to the ocean although they just live a few hours away!). Collecting at both studios through APRIL 6. It gets cold in AG, high in the mountains, so warm things are great....belts, purses, shoes in good condition. Thank you all in advance!. DREAM Project information

Project Overview:
Alta Gracia first started when Julia Alvarez and her husband Bill Eichner went to the mountains of the Dominican Republic to work with a group of small farmers in the mountains of the Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic. The farmers, unable to afford pesticides, were fighting to keep their farms. By default, they were growing coffee, the local cash crop, organically and under the shade in a small mountain village near Los Dajaos. 

Bill, who grew up farming in Nebraska, had a soft spot for farmers in a plight. In his own childhood, he had seen the disappearance of small family farms. When these Dominican farmers asked them to help, Bill and Julia bought some of the local abandoned farm lands, reforested them and joined the efforts of this small farming community to get their coffee into lucrative first world markets. Bill and Julia felt committed to help further the grassroots movement to save the land from deforestation and the pesticides of the big agribusiness plantations. 

Once the sustainable coffee farm was in place, Julia and Bill dreamed of establishing an arts center on the village near the property. They quickly realized the problems of poor education and illiteracy must be addressed before any such project could begin. Los Marranitos is a small village consisting of around 38 homes and 165 people. Students are required to attend the local public school in order to earn a certificate, but real learning is rare. Nearly 1/3 of all children living in this community aged 5-19 are not attending school and those who are attending the public school have to walk over 6 kilometers in order to attend the nearest school in Los Dajaos. 

Bill and Julia soon started a small library on the farm, named after the national Virgencita de la Alta Gracia. They chose the name Alta Gracia, "High Grace", to represent the new center of opportunity for the community living high in the mountains. Over the years, they recruited volunteers from Dartmouth and Middlebury College to open the library and offer additional classes. The library now has more than 500 books and various other educational materials. 

A connection with DREAM developed over the years and in 2006 the two kindred paths were joined as Alta Gracia became an official DREAM site. With the help of Dunn Family Charitable Foundation and World Leadership Corps, DREAM was able to place a fulltime volunteer to work with this community for the 2006-2007 academic year. By opening the enrichment center, it is DREAM's hope that volunteers will be able to provide the community with learning resources and opportunities by developing specialized classes tailored to the community's unique needs and desires.