Hotel La Rosa Book Donations Update

BOOK DONATIONS UPDATE:

Reading at the Coligio del Carmen

         Through the generosity of hundreds of our guests from all over the World, our Costa Rica Airport Hotel is nearing our initial goal of 5,000 books donated to local schools.  Thank you for your support of our program.  To have this kind of success in only three years has been a humbling experience for us and has left many local school Principals amazed at the generosity of people from countries they have only seen on a map!  

Ambiente Liste El Roble Readers

         Though clearly difficult to put a monetary value on these donations, we estimate that the resale value alone in Costa Rica would be in the area of $50,000.00 USD.  Of course, the new book purchase value would be much greater.  The great cost of books for Costa Rican Schools means that only the most important books for learning can be purchased.  Novels, picture books etc are very much a secondary concern to having sufficient pens and paper, rulers etc.  Sadly this is resulting in a culture-wide loss of the love for reading. 

        With the kind assistance of an expat Canadian with close ties to the Women's Club of Costa Rica, and a local teacher, as well as the employees of Hotel La Rosa de America, we have been able to organize, sort into appropriate age groups, source deserving schools, and deliver over 3,500 books so far in English, French and Spanish as well as large numbers of school supplies.  Some of the benefit schools, statistics and pictures can be found on our website page devoted to the project: BOOK DONATIONS
         Many of the schools we have donated to now have large numbers of books in English.  To ensure that these donations are best used and distributed, we have volunteered to host the Women's Club at Hotel La Rosa and to potentially team up with this organization in order to expand the current scope of the program. 

The WOMEN'S CLUB of COSTA RICA:

         The Women's Club of Costa Rica has deep roots throughout Costa Rica, especially in the local schools and we believe that their experience with Costa Rican schools combined with books from Hotel La Rosa's Donation Program will lead to targeted donations that will provide the greatest benefit for Costa Rican children. The Mission Statement of the WCCR is "a philanthropic organization supporting education, primarily through scholarships and development of school libraries for children in Costa Rica."  
         To this end, our San Jose Airport Hotel will be hosting the next planning meeting of the Woman's Club of Costa Rica on the 26th of October 2011.  For Hotel La Rosa, this will be a charity event with all Hotel services donated for the event.  During this meeting, Hotel Staff will introduce the "La Rosa" book donation project.  We hope to continue our donation project and develop our new link with the Women's Club.

         Again, thank you all for your great support of our book donation program, and lets keep the books coming!!

Hotel Owner, Teacher and Principal

Book Donation Program for Increased Literacy

Approximately six months ago, we decided to find a worthy cause for La Rosa de America to support. Eventually, after receiving a suggestion from the owner of another local hotel, we decided to begin a book donation program. Achieving high levels of literacy in Costa Rica is very important to the government and by extension, the people. However, in reality, the schools have next to no books nor funding with which to accomplish this task. This results in a very difficult situation for the teachers tasked to educate their pupils.
We ask guests to fill up their reserve "souvenir space" in their baggage with books. Children's books, school books, English, French or Spanish books, and/or classroom supplies.
To date, we have had a very good response, collecting over 375 books in three languages. We have now donated to two local Alajuela schools and we are hoping to be able to donate a further 350 books by the end of the 2009 high season in April.
If you are interested in supporting this program, please visit our webpage devoted to this project at: http://www.larosadeamerica.com/page9/page9.html
We appreciate the thoughtfulness of all who participate in this program.