2024 Mission: “Remembering Barbara’s Love for Others”; Isaiah House

Greetings in Thanksgiving! We are excited to kick off our 16th Holiday Mission!

Whether you are new to our work or someone – and there are many – who have been with us over the years, THANK
YOU! In 2007, we decided to no longer purchase gifts for each other or our friends and family. Instead, we commit a minimum of $3,000 a year to help those in need. We reach out to our friends & family and ask that rather than exchanging gifts with one another, that they donate to our mission, and the rest as they say, is history. Fifteen Missions later with $185,497 raised not including items purchased individually and donated, our community of love is strong.

We lost a beloved friend this year. We met Barbara at an event years ago. She told us of her commitment to Isaiah House and their efforts to help those with housing insecurities. We were taken aback when later that year, we received her generous donation to our mission. We assumed she had her own mission to support. She generously supported our work throughout the years. At her funeral services, we learned from so many people how Barbara donated her time, energy and financial resources to help so many in need. She did this quietly and often in the background doing so many things that were kind and so touching. We were inspired by her legacy and knew this year’s mission would be a perfect way to honor & celebrate her love for others. Supporting the Isaiah House was the perfect way!

Facing challenges as a young person is difficult enough, let alone having to face those challenges during housing instability or even worse, becoming homeless. Isaiah House’s Mission is to create safe, sustainable and affordable housing units in Western Rockingham County, New Hampshire through alternative housing for families and individuals who are housing insecure. They provide supportive services, financial assistance, and life skills training to develop self-sufficiency. Many parents work; however, with increasing costs they have fallen into hard times and become homeless.

Our goal this year is to help 25 children, 26 Adults, and if possible 30 homeless people living out of their cars. If we have extra funds, we will help stock the food pantry and supplies needed for their shower area. Toys, Clothes, Educational Books, Household Items, games and family experiences are all on the list of items to purchase. We are always happy to shop for you. For those who would like to purchase items on your own, contact Dan at 978-944-8444 or at daploof@hotmail.com and he will be happy to provide a list of needed items. 100% of donations go directly to the Mission.
We are a 501(c)(3) Tax ID# 84-3094813. Checks can be made out directly to Foundation Dario, Inc. and mailed to P.O. Box 1192, Groton MA 01450. We have a Venmo Account: Daniel Ploof @Foundation-Dario.

Please have your donations in by December 15th

We are still in our apartment searching for our new home so we are not able to host our annual wrapping party. Thanks
to Isaiah House though, we are trying something new this year. We are going to host a gift-wrapping party for the children
with food, party games, activities and of course wrapping their parent’s gifts. Kids upstairs while parents wrap gifts for
their children downstairs. Stay tuned for our follow-up letter with fundraising results and personal experiences.

Happy Holiday’s! With Tremendous Love & Gratitude,

“Celebrating our 15th Year”
This Year’s 2023 Mission

!Si, Se Puede! “Yes, It Is Possible” Program

!Si, Se Puede! Inc. was founded in 1985 in response to the articulated needs of families who live in very low-income
housing in the Merrimack Courts and surrounding lower Tower Hill neighborhood in Lawrence. !Si, Se Puede! has
provided continuous services to youth and their families growing from a grassroots outreach to a vibrant center of
educational and social opportunities through:

After School Program [Grades 1-8]:
Provides safe space for educational support of 1:1 homework assistance; Access to computers, printers &
internet; Small group activities that encourage cooperation and creativity; opportunities to take art classes at the
Essex Art Center; Guidance for 8th graders transitioning into high school; Mentoring and support; Nutritious
after-school lunches; Field trips

High School Work/Study Program [Grades 9-12]:
Provides graduates of the after-school program the opportunity to be small group leaders at !Si, Se Puede! along
with students from Phillips Academy. In exchange for hours worked participants receive financial assistance for
educational pursuits. Safe Space to gather, College Applications, College Tours, Scholarship Essay Writing,
Mentoring, Sex Ed, Community Service.

Project Away 5-Week Summer Program:
Provides learning/enrichment experiences for youth who completed the !Si, Se Puede! after-school program.
Project Away provides both on site and field trip experiences. The structure and activities are designed to
emphasize community building, respect for differences and cooperation. Nutritious lunches are part of each
day’s program. All activities are done in small groups to provide individual attention/adequate supervision. Each
year young people eagerly anticipate the start of Project Away.

Your Donation Today will help us Purchase

School Supplies, Youth Holiday Wish List Items & A Make-Over for their Current Space

Greetings in Gratitude!

We are excited to kick off our 14th Holiday Mission! If you are new to our work, thank you so much for your interest in helping us this year! If you are someone – and there are many – who have been with us over the years, THANK YOU so much for your commitment and dedication
to our work! In 2007, Mario and I decided to commit $3,000 of our money to help those in need during the Holidays. We reach out to friends & family and ask that rather than exchanging gifts with one another, that they donate to our mission. Thirteen missions later with $108,500 raised [not including items purchased individually and donated], our community of love is alive & strong. What a gift!

Did you know there are almost 24,000 students currently experiencing homelessness across the State of Massachusetts? The number has been trending upward; however, there has not been a pandemic-related uptick thanks to the eviction moratorium, rental relief funds, and other programs. School support systems are concerned that the numbers will increase dramatically when the moratorium ends. Across the state, schools are becoming a resource for much more than education. We came to meet Arlin Santiago a few years ago when we included her homeless students in a few of our missions. As the Homeless Education Liaison for the Lawrence Public School system, Arlin is dedicated to each and every one of the currently 160 homeless students who have come to rely on her as a resource in their times of greatest need.
Facing the challenges of being a young person are difficult enough, let alone having to face those challenges during housing instability and food insecurity. Many of the student’s parents are working; however, with increasing costs, especially with food and rent, they have fallen on
to hard times. Of course, many of them would love to be able to support their children financially with say a pair of sneakers so they can join the basketball team or pay for a child to attend an after-school field trip, provide art supplies to a child who wants to become an artist, or money to shop at a bookstore; unfortunately, they need to allocate their financial resources to substantive priorities. We want to help these students who are not able to access such programs and related items so they can feel like everyone else. Yes, we have supported Arlin with many shoes and winter coats in the past and there may be some we help this year as well; however, Arlin is focused as we speak on sending out a survey to each of the students asking what they would like to do with regard to a school-related activity or community program.
Feedback will guide us on how we can best help students individually or in groups to gain access to these extra-curricular activities. Arlin also works with Project Home Again who provide essential items such as bedding, pillows, dishes, silverware, mattresses etc. to students and their
families who have found housing and need items to get them established again. Arlin will let us know of situations where a student is in real need of something right now and we will work with Project Home Again to supplement needed items.

As with each of our missions, we prioritize our ability to provide for everyone based on monies raised. We feel significantly challenged with this mission since our goal is to impact as many of the 160 students as possible. We are blessed with your tremendous generosity and know
each of you will provide us with the necessary funds to help achieve our goal. Together we can support these students who deserve access to programs that will help them grow personally while also feeling equal amongst their peers. 100% of donations raised will go directly to helping us purchase items. Donation can be made directly to Foundation Dario, Inc. [a 501(C)(3)] at P.O. Box 1192, Groton MA 01450 or through our Venmo Account Daniel Ploof @Foundation-Dario. We are always happy to shop for you. For those of you who would like to purchase items on your own, please reach out to Dan directly [978-944-8444 or at daploof@hotmail.com

It would be super helpful if all donations were to arrive before December 16th.

As we are still in our apartment searching for our new home, logistics make it a challenge to host an open house for gift wrapping this year.
Stay tuned for our follow-up letter and photos though to hear of our collective fundraising results!
If you have not had an opportunity to check out our website, please visit us at Foundationdario.org
With Tremendous Love & Gratitude,

The Church had an ongoing commitment with a local shelter.  We signed up to personally provide and serve dinner for 35 homeless people.  We were inspired to begin a yearly Thanksgiving drive to collect items for baskets that we would fill with all the ingredients a family would need to prepare a complete Thanksgiving dinner.  At one point Mario and I along with our friend Todd, in his truck, were personally delivering 15 baskets to families in our communities.   There was also money we raised to donate to hurricane victims, and sponsor a child in the Dominican Republic for a school outfit and books.  We even signed up to help a parishioner feed triplets that had been born while Dad was deployed in Iraq.  There is no greater feeling than the collective energies of others who have gathered to help those in need.  

Our active participation in helping others taught Mario and I that we could donate more money than we may have initially thought and that combining your efforts with others, makes an even greater impact.  For us though, the real gift that was starting to reveal itself was the human connection we were making with those for whom we were helping.  We were beginning to see that often, many within our own circles have greater needs than you would may see on the surface and often are hidden behind the walls of homes you drive by that appear to be so together on the outside.  

For every gift we were delivering, there were equally as many hugs from grateful and thankful recipients. Many would say

“I am so embarrassed to ask for help.” 

Or ask; “How can I ever repay you?” to which we would respond; 

“If we were in your situation, we would hope someone would do the same for us.” and “Once you are in a situation where you can help someone, pay it forward.”  

Each of these experiences touched our souls and brought us closer to surfacing how we were going to do something different in our lives to help others. 

 During a trip to Ireland while standing in the middle of a large open field overlooking a magnificent landscape anchored by a large yet unassuming castle with a flag on its main tower piercing the sky, Mario said; 

“How blessed are we to have such an opportunity, to travel, to share these experiences, to grow. I think it’s time to do more, time to tap into our own resources and help others.”  To which I replied 

“I could not agree more!  How can we make this happen?” 

Our journey to help others was beginning to surface. We waited for the next revelation to reveal itself.   

Later that year as we were celebrating our Christmas Eve, it was approaching 3AM and were becoming tired from opening all of our gifts and decided to go to bed and resume opening in the morning. 

 “What is wrong with us?” I asked as we were turning off the lights to the tree, blowing out candles and heading towards our room.  

 “Think of how much money we spent for each other on our stocking stuffers alone not to mention the rest of the gifts.” To which Mario replied

 “And to think of how much we spent collectively on our friends and family.”  Almost simultaneously we replied; “Let’s figure out what that cost and we can use that as our starting point.  We can find those others in need and use this money to help them instead.” 

We determined we had spent around $3,000 and decided that going forward that would be our annual contribution to support a Holiday Mission that would help those in need.  We would reach out to our friends, family and others to ask that in place of a gift for us that they make a donation to our mission. 

When the Holiday season finally approached a year later, Mario and I had come to know Herbert, who was on the board of an orphanage in Costa Rica.  He and others had created a home for children without parents or family.  This home provided food, shelter, education and mental health services to 15 children ranging from newborn up to eight years old. 

This was going to be the perfect way to kick off our official Holiday Mission.  So in December of 2007 we sent out our first letter to our friends and family and before we knew it, checks began arriving in the mail.  We had raised an additional $3,675.  With our collective $6,675 in the account, we boarded our plane excited to deliver our gift to the children!

As the Vientos Navideños [Winter Breezes] known to Costa Rica in December prepared the country for the Summer Season, they gently guided us up the driveway to the orphanage.  The tent was up, tables and chairs were set, balloons were being blown up, the cotton candy and ice cream machines were being prepared, the blow up play areas were beginning to reveal their shapes, trampolines were waiting to be jumped on and the children were beginning to arrive.  As we approached the back yard, the first thing we looked for was the extensive swing-set play area that we paid to have built on the property. Tears of joy began to fill our eyes, it was greater than we had imagined! 

As the festivities began, each child received a Santa’s hat, Clowns painted faces and made balloon animals and music filled the air. Each child’s anticipation was palpable.  The party beginning and our lives would be forever changed from this wonderful experience.

As the children rushed from activity to activity they worked up a hunger just in time for the arrival of 34 happy meals from McDonald’s. There were 15 children in the home at the time, so we invited an additional 19 children from the impoverished area around the home to participate in the party.  With bellies full, the doors opened from the small schoolhouse on the property to reveal Santa Clause surrounded by a floor full of gifts individually packaged with each child’s name. The children rushed Santa and began to hug him. The anticipation on their faces as they waited for their names to be called was priceless.  After all of the gifts had been distributed, Santa asked Mario if he had some cash.  Mario handed Santa a ten-dollar bill that Santa then held up in the air for all the children to see and said; 

“Christmas is not about money or gifts. Each of you is a unique gift to this world.  Each of you is special. You are loved.  Never forget that. ” We collectively began to clap and hug one another.  As the children rushed about playing once again on the swing-set, looking at their new gifts, enjoying cotton candy that was now all over their hands and faces, with smiles that gleaned with happiness!

 It was time though for us to gather our things and say goodbye to everyone. At one point Mario approached me and said; 

“Dan, do you have any money in your pockets?” 

He gestured to his right as I looked to see a Mother and her two children who were from the surrounding community. 

“Dan, the Mother approached me to thank us and let us know that she was not able to buy any thing for the children this year and had we not provided the gifts for her children they would have nothing.  Dan, they have not even opened their gifts we gave them.  They want to wait until Christmas Eve to open them, imagine?

I want to give her some money. “

 I reached into my pocket and as I gave him everything I had, our eyes met and began to fill with emotion.  With all we had been through to make this first mission a success, it was at that moment when we realized we had made a good decision.