Dear Friends of Arete Education,

Arete Education is committed to the mission of community service and stewardship, and experiential learning that challenges the status quo with academic, social, and emotional support for students in the school they attend. In our Mott Haven community of the South Bronx, many families were deeply impacted by the recent earthquakes in the south of Puerto Rico. Numerous students and staff have families in the communities of the south of Puerto Rico, including Guayanilla, Ponce, Yauco, Guanica, and more. As part of our commitment to social-emotional dialogue in our existing programs, many of our students have spoken to their concern for the conditions facing family and loved ones in the south of the island.

Through dialogue with community advocates in Guayanilla, we learned of La Escuela Solidaria SE, an emergency community school that is currently being designed and set up by community volunteers in Guayanilla with the support of members of our Arete staff and staff at our partner school, MS/HS 223 The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology. Our Assistant Director of Middle School Programming (Supervision and Operations Support) and Dual Language Director, Ms. Ariadna Phillips, has been supporting the community advocates in the development of this temporary school site as schools in Guayanilla have been closed since the initial quake and subsequent hundreds of seismic events since late December 2019. Ms. Phillips will be traveling to Puerto Rico in mid-February 2020 to further support delivery and distribution of materials  to community teachers and volunteers at La Escuela Solidaria SE. 

As a community in partnership with our families in the Diaspora, we ask our friends and supporters of this work to consider donating to sponsor needed school supplies and temporary classroom shelters for our friends at La Escuela Solidaria in Guayanilla. Direct sponsorship of needed supplies can be done through our Amazon Wishlist (please ship to Arete Education c/o Ariadna Phillips-Santos and Walter Echevarria P.O. Box 560477 Guayanilla, Puerto Rico 00656) . A donation can also be made through Arete Education's donation page with the designation "Guayanilla School Sponsorship". Donations can also be made towards the cost of shipping donated books and supplies to Puerto Rico that have be sent to us by our school community with love for La Escuela Solidaria SE.  

 

Ariadna Phillips