Liberty Children Fundraiser for the kids

Delfina Mitchell

Liberty Children’s Home continues to face financial challenges, which have been compounded recently by a series of burglaries. It has created additional expenses for the charity foundation to replace the stolen items as well as to implement and maintain new security measures. Fortunately, they received assistance from the Seattle based organization, Professionals without Borders, which has installed alarm systems on three buildings. But there’s still a great need for funding at the children’s home. The director, Delfina Mitchell told News Five today that they are having a major fundraiser at the Bird’s Isle on Sunday and hope to raise thirty thousand dollars.

Delfina Mitchell, Director, Liberty Children’s Home

“We have a fundraiser which we are marketing as a family fun fest. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be a Bird’s Isle and we’re gonna have lots of rides, games, food drinks, lots of activities and we’re going to end the day with a concert by some local artists. Why we’re doing this is to raise money so we can continue our work. You know recently we had a series of break-ins which meant that we had to institute additional security measures to make our campus safe. Because of those additional measures, we’ve had to put up additional lighting, security and all that. It’s going to cost us more money every month in utility bills, paying for security and all that and we are strapped for money as it is so we have to do something to increase the money so we can take care of the additional expenses that these thefts have incurred. The fundraiser, anybody that comes out will have a great time. We have lots of neat games, lots of great prizes that have been donated to us. I think it’s going to be a fair like no other because of the things that we have as giveaways, the prizes that we’ve gotten. The fair is going to be from ten a.m. to eight p.m. there is free entrance from ten to twelve, no charge. After twelve o’clock we’re charging five dollars for adults and two dollars for children. Santa Clause is going to be there from twelve to three-thirty with a gift for every child so bring your child out to meet Santa Clause and get a gift. I also want to say, take this time to not cook Sunday dinner because we’ll have turkey dinner, barbecue, stew chicken and rice, lots of pastries so come on out and have a good time. Start the Christmas season. Listen to the Christmas season and come out and support our children.”

Cal Ihler

Cal Ihler, Professionals without Borders

“We came to Belize looking for a place to do service work and came to Liberty and just were so struck by how the children were taken care of so well and the needs that they have. So for this particular trip, we heard that they were being broken into and computers were being stolen, clothes were bing stolen and it was not only affecting the staff, but the children too. And so we started doing fundraising to find some generous donors. They donated all the alarm equipment to us so we came down and installed alarms in their office, library and learning center. And so we’re pretty happy and grateful to be able to come down and help out.”

Professionals without Borders previously installed a water irrigation system at Liberty Children’s home and have plans to return in March of 2013 with ten students from the Seattle University to do further improvements on the water system and replace the gutters on the learning center.