Shelter

One of our primary projects in the Dominican Republic is building homes for the needy. The first project started April 3, 2013.

Mariaand

Albania

We met Maria and Albania in February of 2012 when we were distributing shoes in Maggiolo. Albania asked us if we could help her mother get a new leg. Through research we were able to find a connection through the LDS Church and Orthopedic Innovations that donated a prosthesis for Maria. We made all the arrangements, paid for food and travel and she received her new leg June 28th 2012.

Later we selected them to receive a new home because where they were living made it impossible for Maria to walk and because they were in dire need.

They recently moved into their new home. The majority of the funds for this building were donated by Donella Sewell of Cochrane, Alberta. Donella and her family through our foundation have been helping to feed the family and have helped Albania with upgrading her schooling.

We chose to build a home for this young family because they are doing so much to help themselves and others. Their home was in a dangerous situation. The foundation was crumbling and the home was falling down the hill. Neighbors had come to the rescue late one evening as a side of their home fell away.

Funds for this home were donated the Kilgor Family through Color My World. The group came and helped with the building of this home. Because of the location of the home, 350 buckets of dirt had to be hauled by hand up the hill by hand to fill the floor of the home.

BIERCA LOPEZ PICHARDO and familyBierca and her family of five children lost their home to fire on February 21st, 2014. They lost everything that they owned except the clothing on their backs. Initially our foundation provided clothing for the family.

We received donations to rebuild a home for them from the Oaks and ZoBell families. Construction is currently in progress.

When Jose and his family had a new addition, our foundation offered to

build a room onto their home.

Few, if any have given more service in the community than Jose. He is

constantly volunteering his time for foundation projects.

The funds for thishome were donated

by an anonymous donor.

Sandra Nelson, her family and friends chose this family from a group of pictures send to them by our director Amarilis Urena in the Dominican Republic.

The new home includes a little grocery store operated by the grandma

The home was torn down by a group from Ayuda foundation on June 19th 2014. Two months later the family moved into their beautiful new place.

Oliver, Julie and their 3 children and grandma Rosa live in this home.

There are many people living in this very small home.

Several of the family has degenerative kidney disease. 3 are on dialysis.

Only one man has a job to try to support the entire family. His job is to fix fans. He doesn’t even make enough to feed everyone.

One son of the family was so excited that his parents were getting a home that he borrowed money from the back to add additional funds to make the home even nicer.

Jacinto, Lina, Ana Marie and family

Funds for this home were raised byKara Werner, Judy Alverez, Mette Edwards and Rebecca Alverez from Calgary

Upon seeing the need in the Dominican in November, we posted a small online fundraiser for this project. The money was raised in a couple of days, thanks to a few generous people. The floor was poured in early December.

Elvis and Julia Elvis is a carpenter. He builds the doors and windows for the homes we make in the Dominican Republic. They were living in a desperate situation with their little son (age 4) and Julia’s 2 brothers.

Their sponsor, Toni ZoBell from Lethbridge Alberta sold her retirement property in Nicaragua and donated the money to build a home for this family. Their lives are changed forever!

Leonida Leonida is an 18 year old mother of 3 in the Dominican Republic. She lives in desperate poverty. Zoe (12) and Gemma (9) Palmer from Edmonton, Alberta have watch as their parents and grandparents have worked with the Dominican Starfish Foundation to build people homes. They set their goal in August of 2014 to build a home and in fact a whole community before they graduate highschool. Leonida was the person they picked to help first.

On January 14, 2014 they took Leonida by the hand and show her the new home that they and others had raised money to build.

Kelvin and Lilly Almonte and

Family

Kelvin drives motorcycle taxi for a living. When Lisa and Bob Hunter chose to raise money for this family, Kelvin had broken his leg in an accident. Led by Lisa Hunter, the Hunter families and Weller families from Edmonton, Alberta raised the money for this home.

Cathy Simpkins went to the Dominican Republic with a group from Edmonton in February of 2014. The raised the money to build a home. While there, she took this picture of a random child while walking through Javillar. She posted this on facebook. Another lady, Helen from the US saw this and asked who the little child is. Louise was visiting one day at one of the homes we built and saw the little girl. She immediately went to find out more about her. Louise and Amrilis visited the home and found very, very sad conditions. Cathy Simkins took on the fundraising for this home and she brought the group who raised the money in March 2015 to see the new completed home and bring housewarming gifts.

Yokayla, Abyiana

and family

This home is a duplex for 2 families

When visiting this home on March 11, 2015as a possible purchase, we found that his family was losing their home to the creditors in only 3 days. Rather than purchase the home, we put the word out and many kind donors stepped up right away and raised the money to save the home for this family of 6.