Thanks for the update.

Patrick.

Thanks for the update.

Patrick.

+1

Thank you for your support, guys.

I'm here in tears, as I have just received the photos from last year that a girl at the mail office took when the kids got their presents.  I've picked three to show you here.  The lady with the kids I'm almost 100% sure were presents bought by us (I do recognize the wrapping paper from the kid at left and at right) and the two bicycles were also ours (not from MSG though).

You guys are super! 

Here is what I purchased with the money collected here, give or take one toy due to the exchange rate.  Dolls for the younger girls, Polly sets for the "older" ones (4 y.o.) - oooh, I love those Polly sets! - friction cars and dinosaurs for the younger boys, bikes and cars for the older ones, musical toys for the very young kids.  The second photo shows what I purchased today to complement the list of 45 kids of the daycare, using the money collected at the CD auction, which I will use also for educational material for their use (they are going to send me a list of suggestions, but we've been talking about puzzles, crayons, memory games, childrens books).  Now I have to wrap everything and put the names. Their Christmas celebration was postponed from tomorrow to Friday in order to allow these preparations.

Our colleague fotografer asked me about having photos from the event. I am considering going there, although I am a bit scary of entering a favela. I'll talk to a guy I know, the one who directed me to the daycare manager, because he often visits as part of his duties as a member of the social responsability group of our company. In any case, I will ask the manager to take photos, even if on a cell phone.

Lisa, actually I am cheating with the packing and I bought those small gift sacks.  

Presents to be delivered tomorrow. We hired a Santa Claus - the kids will be so thrilled! I'm going there, so hopefully tomorrow night I'll post some photos of the event.

Sounds like you really went all out!  How wonderful

Looking forward to the pics!

A background about this daycare, as the girl who was our contact was explaining us (she doesn't manage it as I thought, she coordinates part of an educational initiave sponsored by my company with several public schools in this slum).

This is a daycare that receives financial support from the city government, which is basically the rental of the house, the salary of the eight workers (4 "caretakers", which I believe are not actually teachers except by one, 4 helpers for kitchen, cleaning, etc). Kids are given four meals a day there.

Our company sponsors educational activities in many schools in the area, through an NGO (Redes Mar�) that have several other sponsors for education, sanitation, healthcare, art and even a community blog. In the case of the daycare they provide art and music teachers and a storyteller.  I have just found out that one of the activities offered, I don't know for what age range, is photography.  I will certainly dig into this later.  There are programs not just with the kids, but with their parents, who are mostly uneducated people without regular jobs, many unfortunately involved with drugs (alcohol or illegal drugs).

The event took place not in the daycare, because they don't have a large room, but in this NGO's head office, which is an oasis inside the shanty neighbourhood - well built, well kept and its fa�ade is decorated with painted tiles made by kids from one of the art programs (older kids).  Their Christmas celebration was not just the presents with Santa, but singing and other activities.  We weren't able to stay for the whole thing, though, because we could not stay so long away from work.

Checking the images now I realized that only around 35 of the 45 kids were there. I will ask my contact what happened.  It seems they did not bother by the very fake look of our Santa Claus. They knew he was coming and were very excited upon his arrival. When they had their names called to receive their presents, reactions varied from a high-five greeting to some fear of that man in weird costume. After all presents were distributed, they were allowed to open them (and it is interesting how almost all of them respected this arrangement) and I captured some cute reactions that I will show later. Some grouped with friends to show each other what they had gotten, some surrounded Santa for chating.

Below are images of the tree with the presents, the kids waiting Santa to enter, one of the kids receiving his present and kids with Santa.

Thanks for posting the pictures. I'll be looking forward to seeing the rest. The Santa didn't look fake, he looked pretty good IMO! Looks like overall you did a wonderful job!!

I had expected to upload other images tonight, but one of our lovebirds escaped (I left his cage door opened after I medicated his partner's beak - stupid me!) and it took me almost one hour to find his in a neighbour's apartment five floors above us. I was very shaken. Gladly it all ended well, but I'll edit the images tomorrow (I'm making a composite) and upload it.

Michael, there was a boy named Micael, he was one of the friendliest.

Wonderful pictures!  What a great thing you did for these children!  Thanks again, Maria, for allowing us to be a small part of your efforts

Yeah, that covers it. Nice to be included and be able to do something. It looks like madelaide really spread it out which makes even more kids able to get something.

Thanks..