Character Counts

Lisa Mastain was in Puerto Plata in November and spent some time volunteering at the Dove Missions Center. She so generously donated a television, VHS player, and fan to Dove Missions. We have been wanting a television for awhile, and the kids were really excited about it! Here is the Boys Club watching Character Counts; an educational video. This TV will be just another tool we can use to help educate the kids in our programs. Lisa also provided the money for a pizza and ice cream party, so a big thank you to her (pictured below with Yaneli) for all her help to Dove Missions.

Holiday Party for Hope

We would like to take a moment to recognize two of our Dove Missions volunteers, Melissa Bazely and Samantha Short, pictured together below in the Dominican in May. They were working with Dove Missions in the summer, and will be back both over the holidays and next summer for several months. They have seen Dove's huge need, and are fundraising to help cover the costs of some of our programs. They are holding a Spaghetti Dinner on December 2nd in Barrie, Ontario, so if anyone lives in that area, be sure to check it out for a great cause! Or, you could contact either of them to get ideas on how to start your own fundraiser for Dove Missions! You can contact Melissa at mbazely@sympatico.ca for advice on fundraising for Dove. We have so many programs in the works, and just need the funds to get started!

The Holiday Party of Hope will be held at Holly United Church, 211 Marsellus Dr. on Dec. 2 from 6 p. m. to 9 p. m. A spaghetti dinner and desserts will be served. Tickets are $15 dollars in advance at the church, and $20 at the door. Children ages five to 12 are $5 and those under age five are free.

Click HERE to read the full article.

Painting Nails

The girls of the Girls Club love anything typically girly; especially painting their nails! Women and girls in the Dominican Republic are very conscious about the way they look, and you don't often seen them without their hair and nails done. Diane Wolff, Dove Missions's Secretary and Fundraising Director, was in Puerto Plata last week and brought with her, among other things, this nail painting kit. You put the paint in a spinner, and the machine paints the nails, which the girls loved and had a blast playing with. You can see Sindi to the left, and Brittany, below, showing off their new nails!

Christmas Preparations!

Christmas is just one month away and we are planning a big party for the kids. We are going to have a dinner for the 79 kids, currently planned for December 20th. For all the food we will be buying, we will need about $5 per person. If you are interested in sponsoring a Christmas dinner, you can use the paypal button to the right (just specify that it is for Christmas) and for every $5 you donate, we will have the funds for one more dinner. We will also be raising money for transportation to the location we are having the party at, Christmas baskets with gifts for each family, and supplies for our Christmas play (set design, costumes, makeup, etc.) Donating $5 or $10 is a great gift idea for teachers or coaches this Christmas, and something that most people would really value receiving!

The kids are already very excited. Most of the families that they come from do not do anything special for Christmas. If they can afford it, they will have a special dinner. We already have the Center covered in Christmas decorations, complete with a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree! This is going to be a really special time for the kids, and we need your help to make it happen! You can see Cathy and Liz on the picture to the left, and Eddie, Oliver, and Angel below. We would like to thank Todd and Cindy Evans for the donation of all the Christmas decorations!

Music Program

We are definitely going to go ahead with the music program. We have arranged a music teacher from Brazil that has been living here for years. Tadeu will spend the first 2 months constructing instruments from recycled materials, milk cans, PVC tube, water jugs, bamboo, etc. he will help the older boys do this, the next 4 months he will be teaching the boys and some of the bigger kids to play in a band, some will play, some will sing, and some will dance. They will be writing their own songs, and their own music. At the end they will be producing a CD, the music will be that good.

We are starting this music program because music is an important part of these children's lives and they light up dancing and singing when they hear music playing. The program design would include the teacher, instruments, all construction, tools, and buses to hotels to play. It is top of the line instruction at a hefty price of $600.00 a month for a 6 month program. We have others interested in donating, and once we receive enough donations to cover the whole program we will begin.

The children are so excited, and with the recording of the CD, all our sponsors will have an opportunity to hear their donation in action!


This is the main project we are working on fundaising for right now. If you are interested in donating, please click on the paypal button on the right sidebar. In the box, note that it is for the music program. Thank you so much!

Laptops Needed

Last week we had many friends at the Center. Each arrived with their own cameras to capture their experience as a volunteer. We couldn't help but notice the immediate infatuation the older boys had with these cameras. They were allowed to borrow the cameras and our volunteers asked them to take photos of their fellow Dove members, like this picture of Camili. The older boys and girls are natural photographers, and it made us think about pushing up the date of our photography class to the beginning of the new year. We have sufficient donated cameras but the only thing holding us back now are computers. We don't have any that would allow the children to edit, and enjoy the photos they will take in the class. We are asking anyone who may have friends with old laptops to think about donating them to Dove.

Kite Making

The Boys Club spent a class working on kite making. The kids are so creative and love doing projects like this. They went home with their kites, and shortly after, ran back to the Center to show Liz and Cathy their kites. They pointed in the distance, and there, tied to the house of one of the boys, were their kites flying high!