Subasta for Ninos – Charity Auction in La Paz Benefits Children
The 22nd Annual Subasta – Auction and sale to benefit FANLAP, the La Paz charity for children is coming and you are invited to participate.
Come join the fun. Subasta 2010 will be held Sunday, December 5 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Marina de La Paz. This is the 22nd anniversary of the annual auction to benefit needy children of La Paz. While the event is coordinated by Fundación Ayuda Niños La Paz, A.C. (FANLAP), Club Cruceros de La Paz, A.C. continues to be a sponsor.
In addition to a grant from the Mexican government, major funding comes from our yearly bazaar and auction, the Subasta. You can help in a number of ways.
We accept items for boats, homes, clothing, or any other “treasure” you would like to donate to the cause. Please bring donations to the Marina de La Paz office, Legaspy and Topete, during normal office hours or contact us at the phone number or email addresses below.
We need volunteers weeks before the event to price clothing, make minor repairs to donated items and separate articles to be auctioned from those which will be sold. The day of the auction, we need helpers to work at all the booths: the bazaar, the beer and soda booth, the bake sale, bargain table, and the cash drawers where pesos and dollars are exchanged for scrip.
Our cookbook, Recipes 4 Scholarships, will again be available for sale at Subasta - all proceeds support the FANLAP Junior and Senior High School Scholarship Program.
The mission of Fundación Ayuda Niños La Paz, A.C. (FANLAP) is to offer children and adolescents who live in marginal neighborhoods of our city an essential base to develop a dignified and responsible life by promoting a nutritious diet and offering tools to obtain a quality education and physical and mental well-being. We accomplish this by creating a network of participation within the community, the public and private sector and non-governmental organizations.
In 1996 some of the members of the board of directors of FANLAP were introduced to a breakfast program which had been started by Padre Luis, a beloved Catholic priest, in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of La Paz. While working with this program, we noticed many of the students did not continue school past the sixth grade, although Mexican law states they must complete the ninth grade. In families of more than one child, only the boys were sent to school as “girls will only get married and don’t need an education.”
In 2000, we started a scholarship program which we help students of low-income families attend 
junior and senior high school by supplying them a backpack with school supplies, a uniform, gym clothes, tennis shoes, school shoes, and transportation expenses to and from school. In the case of senior high school, we also pay tuition costs and the cost of two busses each way to school. A handful of students also continue their education past high school thanks to individual sponsors.
All our students must work to their capacity. We have meetings every two months where we review the current report cards to make sure their grades comply with our requirements. They also perform community service, and we have implemented a homework club, in which each student is required to participate.
As more families migrated from mainland Mexico to work in construction or in the fields, new neighborhoods were established and the breakfast program was not able to handle the influx of children in the area. We opened a dining room in Colonia Laguna Azul in 2003, where at the present time 150 children come to have a hot lunch five days a week during the school year. We inaugurated a public library in the same building in November of 2009; this is the only privately owned library in Mexico which is supported by the “Red Nacional de Bibliotecas.”
FANLAP has received certification of legality and transparency from CEMEFI (Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia), an organization composed of businesses such as Walmart, OXXO, OfficeMax, community foundations, banking institutions and organizations like us. Out of 262 organizations in all of Mexico to have this accreditation, FANLAP is the only one in Baja California Sur.
If you would like to sponsor a student or volunteer to help our fund-raising and publicity committee, or teach English, or help tutor a student, or have an art class, or just come to our dining room to meet “our kids”, you may contact us at fanlap@hotmail.com, jupete49@hotmail.com, or call us at 121 2166. For more information about our programs or how to make a donation, please visit our website at www.lapazninos.org. Or stop by the office and Marina de La Paz and ask for Mary.
Thank you so much for your attention. We hope to meet you soon.
Judy Peterson
President,
Fundación Ayuda Niños La Paz, A.C.