Operation Nica
The First Donation Trip. Tim and I both came down for the entire month of November 2006. We took advantage of the opportunity we had in our friends and BIP employees coming down at various times during that month. Brooke Rundle, Dave and Lydia Kniffin, and Tim’s long-time friends Mike and Lorraine Akeman all brought down huge loads of everything volley. Where did it all go?
Nicaraguan National Team: The first stop was in Managua where Tim and I paid a visit to his friend and National Team coach, Rene Quintana. We were lucky enough to leave them with about 15 pairs of shoes, some kneepads, a couple nets, and t-shirts.
San Juan Del Sur “amigos”: Our realtor, Henkel Smith, introduced us to Omar, a San Juan Del Sur Local who just loves to play volleyball. Tim and I sat down with him one day and asked him what we could do to help the local volleyball community. His first concern was getting a permanent net and fixed lighting up on the beach. We were happy to be able to give him a net for the court on the San Juan Bay beach and have discussed with the Mayor, Eduardo Hollman, a more permanent solution. Fortunately, it is in this year’s budget to make the necessary improvements. Omar and his friends are constantly in training and he and his partner represent Nicaragua in the Central American tournaments. We were able to give them some t-shirts, socks, and shoes as well, but are hoping to get them some beach balls in the future so that they can have more productive trainings.
High School Clinic: Over Thanksgiving weekend we had Brooke, Dave, and Lyd all here at the same time, and since they were responsible for rounding up most of the equipment BIP was giving away we wanted to do something special in the community. Kathleen Knight, from Pelican Eyes, put us in touch with Principal Yadira Ponce at one of the local High Schools. It was such a rewarding experience to spend 3 hours with these kids, playing an exhibition match against their men’s alumni team, followed by and hour or so of instruction for the kids. The were very gracious of our involvement and we left them with a couple bags of balls, a couple nets, some t-shirts, and a few sets of much needed uniforms. Tim and I are really looking forward to spending more time in the future with these teams, and getting more volleyball teams/players down to help with this team as well as others.
Pre-School Backpack Donation: Unfortunately, we ran out of time and weren’t able to make it to the local pre-school, but we gave about a dozen backpacks to Kathleen to take over there. We hope that the kids enjoy them!
