Potter’s House in Guatemala City

Cindy was at a 60th birthday party in NYC where she ran into a friend from many years ago when she lived in New Jersey.  “We started talking and one thing led to another and of course the topic of “Dollies Making A Difference” came up!  Next thing you know, I had another recipient organization to send our dollies and colorful teddy bears to!”  

Cindy’s friend Ellen Gordon put her in contact with a humanitarian organization based in Morristown, NJ called “Beyond the Walls”, which is “dedicated to making a substantial long-term impact in the lives of poor and disadvantaged persons around the world.”

Volunteers from “Beyond the Walls” were about to embark on a humanitarian visit to Guatemala City, where they would do work with a partner organization called “Potter’s House Association”.  This group “serves over 11,000 people, more than half of whom are children, who live and work in the Guatemala City garbage dump.  They are derogatorily called scavengers by the locals as they sustain themselves by picking through the garbage in the hopes of finding food to eat, materials to use in building their homes, and bits of refuse that they can sell for pennies.  Most of them earn less than $5.00 a day.”

Betsy Ahl, the director of “Beyond the Walls” told us,  “Potter’s House has identified 8 forms of poverty, only one of which has to do with money.  One of the most widespread is what is called “poverty of affection“.  In an environment where it takes an entire day of scavenging through garbage to find a few items to recycle, resell, or even eat, there is little time left for luxuries like love and affection.  Thus, our volunteers who travel from the United States to Guatemala will take time from their projects – building and renovating houses, running medical clinics, etc – to hug and play with the children in the dump community.  The dollies and colorful teddy bears from Dollies Making A Difference would be such a lasting and meaningful gift for our volunteers to give to these wonderful children, whose only toys are the ones they have rescued from the dump…and you can imagine what condition they are in”.

We ladies got to work and quickly mailed 25 dollies, each wrapped in her own crocheted blanket, and 10 colorful teddy bears to “Beyond the Walls”, since the volunteers from New Jersey would be leaving the next week for Guatemala City.

A few months later, we received these touching photos.  “To Give is to Receive”.