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According to Angela Walter, Sonoma resident and member of Santa Rosa’s New Vintage Church, “What a person might spend on a pair of designer jeans, would send a child to school for a whole year.”
Amidst the dense tropical backdrop of the Costa Rican jungle, bursting with the humid scent of an agricultural community, is the town of San Ramon. Known for possessing a relative abundance compared to other Central American countries, Costa Rica is still plagued by poverty, and San Ramon is one town that lacks the resources necessary to bring some of its residents out of an abject state.
In San Ramon, impoverished children giggle barefoot through dusty streets; some chase small wooden “tops” that careen over pebbled terrain.
Education is an important value in San Ramon.
Emerging from huts made of rusted tin siding, groups of children set off toward El Jardin, one of the primary education schools in the city of 14,000. Others are not so fortunate, because in Costa Rica primary education is an out-of-pocket expense.
“It costs $150 a year for one child to go to school,” said Angela Walter, a Sonoma resident and member of Santa Rosa’s New Vintage Church, a revitalized Baptist church that performs missionary work in Africa as well as in countries such as Costa Rica. “What a person might spend on a pair of designer jeans,” added Walter, “would send a child to school for a whole year.”
You can’t put a price on that.
In July, Walter, along with 19 other members of New Vintage Church, will again travel to San Ramon. Having taken a maiden mission last October, they are eager to return to the country, a nation of three million people, that has experienced recent civil war (1948), military coups, as well as various other attempts at social realignment. In 1987, President Oscar Arias Sanchez gained world recognition for Costa Rica when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Over the past 50 years, economic and social stability have come to Costa Rica, with civil liberties and presidential limits firmly established. It is this history of diplomatic integrity and soulful optimism that makes San Ramon a prime place for successful missionary work. “We’ve got projects set up, like community development plans, working at soup kitchens. We’re also going to visit a few orphanages,” said Walter, who described last year’s experience as life-changing. “Last year I thought, ‘What do I have to give to these people?’ And then you get there and realize…everything.”
Still, the cost of such volunteerism is not cheap. “We will do whatever we can to help them,” said Walter. “With a lot of charities you don’t really know where the money goes,” she said. “In this case, you do.”
In hopes of raising money for the trip, the New Vintage Church will be hosting a charity car wash on Sunday, June 3 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Grocery Outlets on Fourth Street in Santa Rosa, as well as a silent auction on June 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the church, located at 3300 Yulupa Avenue in Santa Rosa. All of the money raised will go towards funding the trip, which is scheduled for July 1 through 9, as well as to affording economical aid to the children of San Ramon.
“One of the ladies who went on the trip last year was a dental hygienist,” said Walter. “So we brought the children a bunch of toothbrushes and toothpaste and taught them all how to brush. You don’t realize exactly how much these people need until you get down there and see it firsthand.”
Private donations are being accepted c/o Angela Walters, New Vintage Church, 3300 Yulupa Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95405. Please make checks payable to NVC. All donations are tax deductible (94-1275244).
