Welcome to our 2015 Blog!

Welcome to our blog, now updated for 2015! Please visit "Our 2015 Camps" above to learn about our 36 camp sites where students, volunteers and teachers are preparing for our January camps. Check back without the camp season for updates, news and photos.

New to our program? Read more about our project and why it matters... see where we work, watch our video, or read our holiday campaign letter... learn how to donate to our camps... like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter (@JumpStartCR), or follow us on Instagram (#JumpStartCR). 
 

JumpStart!

We have been so excited to continually confirm camps and will soon have this blog updated!

Under Construction - Preparing for JumpStart 2015 Camps!

We are thrilled to have more than 35 camp sites confirmed for January 2015! Please bear with us as we finish preparing a section for each camp on the blog so you can follow your favorite community, teachers and students. In the meantime, please follow us on Facebook for all the latest JumpStart news, or visit our main page, www.jumpstartcostarica.org, for more about the program.

Last Chance for a Luxurious Weekend at Manuel Antonio!

As a follow up to our friend Heidi Romanish's fundraising efforts on behalf of JumpStart Rincón Grande, there's a fantastic raffle for a weekend for two at the Hotel Parador, Manuel Antonio, for each donation of 10,000 ($20) to benefit the our ongoing JumpStart educational programming in Rincón Grande de Pavas. The raffle will take place June 29th and numbers 34-100 are available. To participate, donate online, via check or bank deposit (information including bank accounts below), and send us a private message to confirm. Please note in your message three raffle numbers of your preference, or whether you'd rather we choose a lucky number for you. Thanks for helping our students in Pavas!

Como recuerdan, nuestra amiga Heidi Romanish ha estado realizando esfuerzos para recaudar fondos y fortalecer los campamentos JumpStart en Rincón Grande de Pavas. Hay una magnífica rifa para un fin de semana de lujo para dos personas en el Hotel Parador, Manuel Antonio, para beneficiar al programa. La rifa será el 29 de junio y tenemos los números 34-100 disponibles, por cada donación de 10,000 colones. Si le gustaría aportar a una buena causa puede donar en línea o por cheque (vea enlace abajo) o a las cuentas que se detallan abajo y enviarnos un mensaje privado con el detalle. Favor indicar en su mensaje tres números de su preferencia en caso de que se hayan vendido, o si prefiere que le asignemos una a la suerte.

TO DONATE, VISIT US HERE /  VISITENOS AQUI PARA DONAR HOY... 

BANK ACCOUNTS/CUENTAS: Banco Nacional de Costa Rica. Dólares: 100-02-171-401-8, SINPE 15117110020004017. Colones: 100-01-171-385-7, SINPE 15117110010003850. Cédula jurídica de la Fundación: 3-006-555591. 

What's New with JumpStart this June?

We're only eight days into June, and already it's been quite a month...

We had a wonderful Festival of music, yoga and more organized by longtime program collaborator Heidi Romanish (see our previous post), and raised more than $600 along the way for our school-year programming in Rincón Grande de Pavas. We are still raising funds - please visit us here to donate online today.

Musician Mario Tanzi and his band entertain the crowd at the June 7th Festival for Rincón Grande.

We're gearing up for our mid-year environmental English camp at the Los Coyotes Reserve near San José for the second year running, thanks this year to a partnership with Northeastern University. Watch this space for updates. 

And we're continuing to plan for our camps in January 2015! Much, much more to follow. 

Benefit Festival for Rincón Grande de Pavas Education

Para español, por favor baje al final del post.

The Costa Rica Multilingüe Foundation and JumpStart Costa Rica are thrilled to announce that educator and longtime program collaborator Heidi Romanish, founder of Friends through English at the Blue Valley School, is organizing a festival to benefit ongoing educational programming in Rincón Grande, an impoverished community in western San José. Funds raised at the event (or online, by check or bank transfer) will allow Costa Rica Multilingüe to support participants in Friends through English, which unites Blue Valley and Rincón Grande in the study of English, and JumpStart Amazon - Rincón Grande de Pavas, an intensive English camp. The event will be held Saturday, June 7th, from 12-5 pm, at the Polideportivo de Aranjuez (directions below), and will include acoustic music by various artists, a yoga demonstration, a poetry reading and food from the Feria Verde. Admission is free with a recommended minimum donation of 5,000 colones. Donors at the level of 10,000 colones or above will receive a volume of original poetry and be entered in a raffle for prizes including a weekend at the Hotel Parador in Manuel Antonio.

Donations can be made at the event or before, during and after the festival by check, bank transfer or online donation. Visit us here to make your donation today!

Directions to the event: The Feria Verde, a weekly organic farmer's market, is located at the Polideportivo Aranjuez, 300 m north and 300 m west of the Santa Teresita Church in Barrio Escalante.

Visit the event on Facebook or write to organizer Heidi Romanish or CRML Academic Director Katherine Stanley for more information. Visit our webpages for details on Friends through English and JumpStart Costa Rica.

ESPAÑOL: Para JumpStart Costa Rica y la Fundación Costa Rica Multilingüe es un placer anunciar que una colaboradora cercana nuestra, la educadora Heidi Romanish, quien fundó "Amigos por el Inglés" en el Colegio Blue Valley, está organizando un festival para apoyar a nuestros programas educativos en Rincón Grande, una comunidad urbano-marginal en San José. Las donaciones realizadas en el marco del evento (en el Festival o en línea, por transferencia o cheque) permitirá a Costa Rica Multilingüe apoyar a participantes en Amigos por el Inglés, que une a estudiantes de Rincón Grande y del Blue Valley por medio del estudio del inglés, y JumpStart Amazon - Rincón Grande de Pavas, un campamento intensivo de inglés. El evento se llevará a cabo el sábado 7 de junio de 12 md-5 pm, en el Polideportivo Aranjuez (direcciones abajo), e incluirá música acústica de varios artistas, una demonstración de yoga, poesía y comida de la Feria Verde. La admisión es gratuita, con una donación mínima recomendada de 5,000 colones. Donantes en el monto de 10,000 o más recibirán un libro de poesía original y un número para una rifa de premios incluyendo un fin de semana en el Hotel Parador en Manuel Antonio.

Las donaciones se pueden realizar en el festival o antes, durante o después del evento por cheque, transferencia bancaria o en línea. Visítenos aquí para realizar su donación hoy!

Direcciones al evento: La Feria Verde, una feria orgánica semanal, se lleva a cabo en el Polideportivo Aranjuez, 300 m norte y 300 m oeste de la Iglesia Santa Teresita en Barrio Escalante.

Visite el evento en Facebook o escriba a organizadora Heidi Romanish o la Directora Académica de CRML, Katherine Stanley, para mayor información. Visite nuestros sitio web para más información sobre Amigos por el Inglés/Friends through English o JumpStart Costa Rica.

JumpStart 2014 Just Days Away

Just over a week after New Years, CRML will be kicking off our 2014 edition of JumpStart Costa Rica! Like last year, we’ll be providing you with updates not only from our office but also directly from the ground. Check out the top column to the right, “Our 2014 camps,” for links to each of our JumpStart 2014 sites around the country. You’ll find empty pages at the moment, but between January 9th and February 7th, 2014, they’ll fill up with stories, pictures and other media posted by our camp facilitators, with content in both English and Spanish so that all our supporters around the world can stay in the loop and follow the progress of our students.

In the meantime, for a taste of the dynamic classroom experience our students are in for next month, we invite you to peruse postings from the facilitators at the helm of last January’s 2013 edition of camps, also divided by site to the right. Not sure exactly where our JumpStart 2014 sites are located? We’ve got a map for that, which you might find interesting even if you’ve seen it before. Freshly updated, it no longer shows just where our 2014 camps will take place. For each camp, you can now find out how many students will be participating, and also see a list of the schools those students attended this year. In total, nearly 600 students from just under 100 Costa Rican schools will attend JumpStart beginning next month.  

Lastly, if you’d like to become part of the team working to make JumpStart 2014 possible and help plant the seeds for a successful 2015 edition in the future, we invite you to consider making a contribution towards our cause. Support in any amount makes a tangible difference, and pledging yours takes only a few simple clicks of the mouse.

Since it’s perhaps too late to say Happy Holidays, on behalf Costa Rica Multilingüe and the entire JumpStart family, Happy New Year! We look forward to sharing our adventures with you as we roll into 2014.

JumpStart Training Now Underway!

With each edition of JumpStart, the pre-camp training at the end of the school year kicks off the last stretch of project coordination. Today, Costa Rica Multilingüe (CRML) is excited to welcome to San José the Peace Corps Volunteers who will be leading most of our camps this coming January as part of JumpStart 2014! For all involved, this training is exciting on several levels. As the only event that brings together the vast majority of this project’s many collaborators, it’s the one opportunity to really see and grasp firsthand the true scale of JumpStart. Not only does it signify that many months of work are about to pay off; it also indicates to what extent. And it’s safe to say this training will be especially validating.

This week’s training will be twice the size of the one we did this time last year. Whereas JumpStart 2013 included 14 camps led by Peace Corps Volunteers, this January we’ll be doing camps in 26 communities through Peace Corps support. Tomorrow we’ll meet the second half of attendees: most of the 25 MEP (Ministry of Education) English Teachers who’ve signed on to serve as co-facilitators at our Peace Corps camps, as well as those teachers’ Regional Advisors, whose advocacy for this project has proven invaluable at several crucial phases of camp planning. Between Volunteers, Teachers and Advisors, we’ll be working with over 50 counterparts this week. Even those who’ve participated in JumpStart before are in for a treat, because a freshly revised curriculum is coming their way. We’ve added a few new English lessons, as well as entirely new extracurricular components. One, which we’re calling “High School Ready,” includes a series of five sessions to prepare students for their upcoming transition to secondary education more generally. From those five sessions, camp facilitators will chose one to organize and implement with students each week. Sessions include a Q&A with local high schoolers, another with high school teachers on habits for academic success, and a high school tour.


Esteli at Casa Presidencial with
friend Raquel, a Spanish teacher
from the UK who helped teach
the first week of JumpStart camp
in Katsi, Talamanca

This week’s JumpStart extravaganza comes not long after last month’s training with Esteli, a Peace Corps Volunteer who is now halfway through JumpStart 2014’s first and only camp to be held outside the standard January-February timeframe. Esteli is working with students from several schools in Costa Rica’s indigenous Talamanca region, with support from other Peace Corps Volunteers and friends from abroad. So far, her camp has been quite the success. The first day, more sixth graders (rising high schoolers) showed up than the number of students who generally enter the local high school each year. We’re excited to see pictures from Katsi, and will share them here as soon as we get them. Also, expect pictures from this week’s big event, which will be coming soon!

JumpStart Expands Beyond Summer Break

Big things are happening in the world of JumpStart! Since this past Monday, the first ever JumpStart camp during students´ mid-year school break (July 1st - 12th) has been underway. The camp, which will last a total of two weeks and include 30 hours of instruction, is being hosted by Reserva Los Coyotes, a nonprofit organization located on a tract of protected forest only a short distance by car from downtown San José. Through its Aula en el Bosque (Classroom in the Forest) program, Reserva Los Coyotes provides elementary students from nearby communities with supplementary instruction in the science topics they learn about in school using hands-on, experiential activities in the outdoors. Like us, they´re committed to dynamic teaching strategies that keep student´s out of their seats and engaged The perfect project partner!



JumpStart Los Coyotes is being facilitated by three volunteers -- Stewart from England, Sima from New York City, and Chelsea from New Jersey – who we managed to recruit through the invaluable support of volunteer organization Maximo Nivel. With assistance from Los Coyotes staff, they´ve spent the last three days reviewing topics such as greetings, basic conversation, and how to describe physical appearance with their 19 students. Starting tomorrow, the curriculum will transition to lessons designed to apply students´ existing English knowledge to topics in science. For instance, instead of describing people, students will be describing animals and leaves. What is the difference between a mammal and an amphibian? What is the difference between a simple leaf and a compound leaf? By the end of this week, our sixth-grade camp participants will be able to answer these questions – in English! At the end of next week, after reviewing prepositions and learning to give directions for navigating the Los Coyotes trails, students will face the camp´s cumulative final project: to devise and complete scavenger hunts involving various landmarks around the Reserve.

JumpStart Reserva Los Coyotes represents substantial progress towards two of our main goals for the JumpStart program: 1) adding more opportunities to reach students, and 2) moving toward a model whereby students learn English in the context of other academic disciplines. As the camp progresses, we´ll be adding more updates to keep our supporters informed, including stories from our volunteer facilitators. Stay tuned!

English...and Science!

This week, the JumpStart Costa Rica 2013 team is joined by two special guests from Mexico´s Adopt a Talent Program (PAUTA), Janet Verjovsky and Richard Cisneros. In Mexico, PAUTA works with underprivileged youth who demonstrate academic talent by providing them with educational opportunities in science and math designed in collaboration with some of the nation´s top scholars. Additionally, PAUTA offers training to teachers to improve how science and math courses are taught in schools. The organization promotes an academic model whereby the teacher takes on the role of facilitator instead of providing students with all the answers. PAUTA´s lessons present kids with a problem and then challenge them to discover a solution, thereby pushing them to think critically and be creative.

Richard from PAUTA working with JumpStart
students in Sabalito de Coto Brus

So, why involve an organization focused on science education with JumpStart? In science, English is the lingua franca of research. For an engineer, doctor, mathematician, chemist, or professional working in virtually any other field of science or math, fluency in English can make him her her better poised to contribute to and learn from the international conversation surrounding their speciality. For that reason, we´re working to turn JumpStart into a program that provides students in Costa Rica with support in both English and science, and that also promotes greater collaboration between teachers of those two subjects.

Janet from PAUTA in La Cruz de Guanacaste

Las Friday, Janet and Richard presented alongside Marta Blanco, our Executive Director here at Costa Rica Multilingüe, about the relationship between English and science at Costa Rica´s annual National Conference for Teachers of English (NCTE). After a trip to the Irazú Volcano on Saturday, they headed in separate directions to integrate PAUTA lessons into two of this year´s JumpStart camps. Currently Richard is working with Darien, the Peace Corps Volunteer in Sabalito, at her JumpStart camp in the local high school. Janet, on the other hand, is on the opposite end of the country working with Taylor in La Cruz. With students in these communities, Janet and Richard are facilitating lessons on topics ranging from astronomy to physics. In Mexico they teach exclusively in Spanish. For JumpStart, however, they are integrating English into their science activities.

Here at CRML we are so excited for this new collaboration and the opportunities it presents for the future! This Friday, Janet will be in Liberia for the JumpStart graduation ceremony there, and Richard will be in Puerto Jiménez. Shortly after they´ll be heading back to Mexico. We will definitely be staying in touch!

A Taste of Our Curriculum: Week Two

"Guess Who" character

During week two, the JumpStart curriculum largely focuses on teaching students how to describe themselves and others in terms of both appearance and personality. Several of the activities incorporate homemade versions of materials for the classic game "Guess Who," where players are provided with pictures of different characters, chose one each, and then try to figure out who their opponent has selected by taking turns asking questions like "Does he have curly hair?"and "Is she old?" until they're able to correctly guess the name of the other player's character.

Taylor teaching the word "tongue" to JumpStart students in La Cruz

For beginning English students, playing "Guess Who" in English can be challenging. It requires a relatively broad vocabulary; an understanding of when to use "to be" versus "to have," as well as how to conjugate both verbs in the present tense; plus the ability to form not only statements, but questions, too. An idea for assisting students who don't have much practice with the vocabulary and grammar concepts the game covers is to provide visuals during the activity, such as conjugation charts for the two aforementioned verbs. Making "to have" and "to be" columns on the board and placing pictures of different body parts under the correct verb  for describing them can also be helpful. To simplify the game, one suggestion from Taylor, the Peace Corps Volunteer leading JumpStart World Connect - La Cruz, is to have each student pick a character and write a few sentences describing him or her, such as "He has blue eyes." Then, students share their sentences with a partner until their partner is able to correctly guess the character being described by asking, for instance, "Is it Carol?" or "Is it Bob?" This modification works well for students who aren't yet ready to concentrate on phrasing questions.

Verb charts for "to be," "to do," and "to live"

Check out the links below to download our materials for playing 'Guess Who" in the classroom, as well as the lesson plan and other corresponding materials from week two, day one of JumpStart, when students are introduced to the game.







Lesson Plan - Describing Yourself and Others

Student Workbook - Tasks 14, 15, & 16

Physical Characteristics

Guess Who Characters

Spanish Sometimes

Among foreign language teachers, students´ talking in their native language during lessons instead of practicing the subject at hand is a common frustration. At our JumpStart camp in Carrizal de León Cortés, one of the co-facilitators, Maria Gabriela, has developed a creative strategy to maximize the amount of time her kids spend listening to and using English while in class.

She's made a Spanish hat! Unless they're wearing it, everyone is supposed to speak only in English. That rule applies not just to students, but to Maria Gabriela and her co-teacher, Marielos, as well. At the beginning of class each student receives 4 tokens; any time they speak in Spanish without the coveted Spanish hat, they loose one. At the end of the day Maria Gabriela and Marielos record the number of tokens each student has left on a chart, and the student with the most tokens at the end of every week receives a small prize! The Spanish hat concept is dedicated to Maria Gabriela's cat, Oliver, who is accompanying her and her students in Carrizal throughout JumpStart. The tokens are even shaped like cat prints!

When Maria Gabriela and Marielos are explaining more complex activities and grammar concepts to their students, and adding gestures and demonstrations isn´t enough for them to get their point across in English, they put on the hat. Ocassionally, they will also let their students wear it. Whether it´s most effective to speak only in English when teaching the language to non-native speakers is a topic of considerable debate. In Carrizal, the goal isn´t to completely eliminate Spanish from the classroom. Rather, it is to better ensure that everyone makes an effort to express themselves in English first.

A Taste of Our Curriculum: Week 1

Over the last few days of JumpStart 2013’s first week, the Peace Corps volunteers and Costa Rican English teachers facilitating the 10 of our project’s 14 camps currently in action have been busy tackling the basics with their students, covering themes such as greetings, basic conversation, and family. One of our lessons for the fourth day of camp teaches how to describe one’s age and count to 100 in English. It incorporates a fun game similar to musical chairs to teach numbers 1 through 10 that’s great for teachers looking for constructive, educational ways to get students out of their seats during class. In one of the lesson’s other activities, students use miniature whiteboards for group work. Sound like an expensive material to buy? We thought so too! At our JumpStart training last year, our camp leaders learned to make cheap, simple, eco-friendly whiteboards using cardboard, tape, and the backing from laminate paper. Check out the attached video brought to you by Megon and Kevin, the former Peace Corps Volunteers behind the JumpStart curriculum, to learn how to make upcycled whiteboards of your own! Below is our “How old are you?” lesson plan, along with the corresponding workbook activities and review sheet. Enjoy!

Lesson Plan - How Old Are You?

Student Workbook - Tasks 8 & 9

Review Sheet 3

Who Said Learning Has to be Boring?

Yesterday JumpStart´s 10^th camp of 2013 kicked off in San Carlos de León Cortes, a small town in Costa Rica´s Los Santos region. There, coffee has been in season since December, and the harvest will last until March. Many families in Los Santos depend on the income they earn from picking the grano de oro (golden bean) during the summer months. With that in mind, we made sure to create a schedule for JumpStart San Carlos that left time for those kids who normally help with the harvest to do so for a few hours hours each day. Nevertheless, some families are making a significant financial sacrifice by allowing their kids to participate in our afternoon camp. We hope to show them that this project is a worthwhile investment!

The rising seventh-graders at JumpStart San Carlos come from five different communities. Those from San Francisco and Bajo San José didn´t have English teachers during elementary school, meaning they were at risk of entering high school with no background in the subject. The camp is being led by two Peace Corps Volunteers: Bradford, who organized it, and Whitney, who traveled from Isla Chira on Costa Rica´s Pacific side to help out all month.

Bradford and Whitney began the afternoon by passing out a cup of M&Ms to each student. For every color, a different question or subject had been written on the board, like “What do you do for fun?” and “Favorite Sports.” The kids took turns taking out their M&Ms and describing themselves as they placed the candies one-by-one back into the cups. In the classroom, promising to give chocolate to the students who participate always grabs everyone´s attention! To help their kids get to know their new classmates and feel more comfortable, our volunteers facilitated the activity mostly in Spanish. They then switched to English and spent the next few hours teaching what's always covered at the beginning of any introductory foreign language course: greetings and basic introductions.

Near the end of the day, Whitney pulled out a large, round parachute and led the kids outside. Everyone grabbed a handle and chose one of the new phrases or vocabulary words they´d learned. With balls on top of the parachute, the kids swung it up and down. Every third swing, Whitney called out two of the different words and phrases, and the corresponding students had to run under the parachute and switch spots with each other.

It was so nice to see the students smiling as the dove under the parachute, dodged the balls, and shielded their eyes from all the dust being stirred up. They had seemed stiff and uneasy all afternoon. JumpStart Los Santos is shaping up to be a real success! At the end of camp in February, it would be interesting to see if the students have learned enough to describe themselves with the M&Ms activity entirely in English! 

The Big Day!

After so much hard work, it’s surreal that this moment has finally come! JumpStart camps officially began yesterday in 9 of the 14 communities we’ve partnered with for this project, including: Amubri, El Capulín, La Cruz, Limón, Puerto Jiménez, Sabalito, San Carlos, Sirapiquí, and Siquirres. The camp in Los Santos starts today; JumpStart Carrizal begins on Thursday; those planned for La Guaria and Quepos kick off next Monday; and JumpStart Sepeque will begin on January 21st. Curious as to where those towns are located? See the Google Map to the left to find out, and then check out the links to the right for stories and other updates from all our sites.

During JumpStart, which ends on February 1st, the Peace Corps Volunteers and Costa Rican English teachers facilitating the camps will be using a curriculum painstakinly designed for this project by Megon Coon and Kevin Klott, two former TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Peace Corps Volunteers who just recently moved back to the United States this past December. In addition to four weeks’ worth of lesson plans, the curriculum includes a student workbook, review guide, and printable materials for many of the activities. We’ll be posting a few of those lessons here on our blog this month!

One of our volunteers´ first priorities as JumpStart gets underway will be to conduct short video interviews consisting of basic questions with their students to better gauge and document each kid´s prior knowledge of English. Because the JumpStart curriculum is fast-paced and jam-packed, it’s important that the interviews are conducted as soon as possible. After only a few lessons, the students, many of whom have never taken an English class, will have learned enough to perform far better than they would have just last week.

These video interviews are just one example of the tools we plan to use to evaluate JumpStart’s effectiveness in preparing students for success in high school English classes. Most of our camps’ participants will be advancing to seventh grade, the first year of high school in Costa Rica, after the current summer break. We’ll be following them throughout the year to see how they perform compared to other students who haven’t attended JumpStart. Based on the results from our one and only camp last year in Carrizal, we believe JumpStart will boost performance not only among students who didn’t receive English instruction during elementary school, but also those who did.

The JumpStart camps themselves are short, but JumpStart 2013 won’t be entirely wrapped up for quite some time. Stay tuned throughout January and during the months that follow to learn about our students’ progress and our continued efforts to make this project bigger and better. Until next time!  

JumpStart Materials In Route!

Yesterday, after months of preparing for JumpStart, we sent boxes of materials from San José to 10 of the 14 communities spread across Costa Rica that will be hosting camps starting next week. To get everything ready beforehand, we had to ask for special permission to enter Casa Presidencial, the government building where we have our CRML office. It’s closed until Monday for the Holidays. Sometimes, though, work can’t wait. And in our case, it couldn’t this time! With everyone gone, we shamelessly converted the hallway into our own makeshift packing and shipping center for the morning. We then loaded the juice, books, snacks, t-shirts, and other items onto our truck and headed off to 6 different bus terminals around the city. The adventure was exhausting to say the least, but we did it with smiles on our faces. Organizing this project has involved so much work, and in some cases minor miracles. However, thanks in large part to all the generous donations we’ve received, we are now confident that JumpStart CAN be accomplished, and that motivates us to finish what’s left of the preparations. Even when carrying heavy loads in the hot sun is involved J   

Most of the boxes we shipped should have reached their destinations by yesterday evening. The exceptions are those for Sabailto and Puerto Jimenez, both in Costa Rica’s far southwestern corner and many hours away from the capital. Let’s hope all the shipments are available for our volunteers to pick up by tomorrow. We are getting down to the wire; at this point there is very little room for error!

Join Us!

We have officially launched our fundraising efforts to make JumpStart Costa Rica a reality at 14 sites across the country. As mentioned in our previous post, thanks to our partnership with the Peace Corps Costa Rica and their remarkable volunteers, we'll be bringing these intensive, free, vacation English camps to communities from the northern border with Nicaragua, to the southern border with Panama. The diversity is incredible - a Caribbean port city, two indigenous communities, beach towns and mountain regions - and these kids really need your help to have their first-ever opportunity at learning English, something their peers at larger primary schools can take for granted.

How can you help? For complete information on tax-deductible donations in the U.S. or Costa Rica, please check out the column at right! For more general info about the program, please check out the rest of this site.

And we received some more inspiring news yesterday: A group of JumpStart coordinators from the Peace Corps are looking to run 26.2 miles at the Panama City Marathon on Dec. 7th, and raise money for their camps with every mile. Take a look at how even a few dollars per mile adds up to a big contribution toward JumpStart:

$1/mile = school supplies for one student for the whole camp
$2/mile = snacks for one student for the whole camp
$5/mile = transportation for a group of students for the whole camp
$10/mile = the entire cost of sending one student to camp

Again, for donation information, please look to the right; to register your gift in honor of a particular PCV racer, email bchildress@crmultilingue.org.

JumpStart 2013, Here We Come!

We are thrilled to announce that plans for JumpStart 2013 are successfully underway! This photo of the map in Costa Rica Multilingüe's office shows the locations of the ten Peace Corps Volunteers who confirmed last week that they will join us as JumpStart Coordinators in their communities, adding ten new programs to our original camp in Los Santos. As you can see, we'll be working all over the country - from the northern border with Nicaragua (in La Cruz, Guanacaste), to the southern border with Panama (in Sabalito). We couldn't be happier to be working with these motivated, hardworking volunteers who are trained in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. For more information, stay tuned here, and/or follow us on Facebook!

Welcome to JumpStart Costa Rica!

For more information about this new project, which seeks to address educational inequality by providing intensive summer language instruction to seventh-graders in rural areas, please see the tabs above in both English and Spanish. To donate, see the column at right. Our nonprofit foundation has set a fundraising goal of $5,000 for this project in order to be able to provide lunch, snacks and transportation for the kids, print materials, hold sessions for parents, and cover other camp costs. We are suggesting donations at three levels, $25, $50 and $100, though any amount will help. Donors who provide contact information will receive updates about and from the kids as the camp advances. As you can see to the right, donations can be made online (fully tax-deductible in the United States), or to the Foundation's Banco Nacional accounts.

Thanks so much and stay tuned here for updates on the camp!
-Katherine Stanley, CRML (kstanley@crmultilingue.org)