Students in the Periclean Scholars Class of 2007 raised more than $6,000 for construction of a new kitchen in a pediatric hospital ward in Honduras. The kitchen opened Jan. 18. Details...
The new kitchen will serve pediatric patients in the Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Student Natasha Christensen and faculty members Jim Brown, professor of history, and Raquel Cortés, visiting international faculty, participated in the opening along with the directors of the hospital and Susana Prieto, coordinator of volunteer projects for the hospital with whom the class worked to carry out the project.
Students in the class raised $6,500 to fund the construction of the kitchen in the largest public hospital in the western region of Honduras, which serves more than 21,000 patients a month. The kitchen enables students from the Centro Universidad Region del Norte under the direction of Dr. Sergio Navarre to prepare daily supplementary meals for an average of 100 children in the emergency room and the cancer, neurosurgery and general wards of the hospital.
In accepting the keys to the new facility from Dr. Brown, Dr. Juan Carlos Zúñiga, director of the hospital, expressed his deep gratitude for the project, calling it a model for others to follow.
In addition to the hospital kitchen project, the Periclean Scholars were busy with other service work in Honduras. The class donated $1,250 to purchase full school uniforms and bicycles so 11 boys from Flor Azul, a rural community and farm for 80 abandoned and abused boys, could go to high school. Another $600 went to buy shoes for boys at Flor Azul who didn’t have them. The Scholars also painted a house, donated a half-ton of clothes and held events to entertain children at Flor Azul and Nuevo Paraiso, a community for abandoned and abused children.