OLRM Run for the Roses!

Thanks to the Newport Beach, CA and Southwest Airlines crew and friends for another amazingly successful Run for Our Little Roses, which has now raised over $20,000 for Our Little Roses. Above is their Run for the Roses with the girls in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

English program earns Girl Scout top honor

Kelly Telljohann, 17, teaches the English words for colors to a girl at Our Little Roses in Honduras, using the ESL kit she developed. Telljohann was awarded the Girl Scout Gold Award for her project.

Kelly Telljohann, a Ballantyne Country Club resident and junior at Providence Day School, received the Girl Scout Gold Award May 5 for her English as a Second Language (ESL) project that was so successful it has been incorporated into three ESL programs spanning from Charlotte to Honduras.

“I know its being used and it feels so good,” said Telljohann, 17, who has been a Girl Scout for 10 years and is part of Troop 1405.

The Gold Award is the Girl Scouts’ highest award and is presented for an individual’s project that involves identifying a need, developing an action plan, leading and delegating, and results in a final product that is sustainable by another party.

When Telljohann traveled to Honduras as a short-term mission trip in July 2011 to visit Our Little Roses, a home for girls rescued from the streets of San Pedro Sula – the murder capital of the world – she saw the girls’ desire to learn English. Some have the opportunity to attend the home’s bilingual school and need English practice, while some attend public school and need a more basic introduction to English. Learning English increases their opportunities and earning potential upon graduation.

Telljohann spent 160 hours developing an ESL kit to feed the girls’ motivation and to help the missionaries connect with the girls.

Read the entire article from the South Charlotte News here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/05/31/4078074/english-program-earns-girl-scout.html

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/05/31/4078074/english-program-earns-girl-scout.html#storylink=cpyRead

WHO IS THAT BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE MIRROR?

Katherine took the mirror and smiled at it!  She is the beautiful girl in the mirror! For the first time the girls got their own mirror. This is a special acrylic not breakable mirror that every girl got to draw her own faces or the faces of the girl in front of them. The girls enjoyed this activity that was basically for the older girls, but as there was enough material many of the little girls were able to do it. With bright eyes and showing surprise Martita, a 6 years old, asked:  "Are you sending me to do the activity that the big girls were doing yesterday?"  Her eyes opened wide when the teacher answered "Yes, go to the dining room to do the activity".   

SPIRITUAL GROWING

"El Espiritu de Dios esta en este lugar"  (The Spirit of God is in this place) Was one of the hymns that the girls from Our Little Roses sang last Sunday 14 when Rev. Gustavo Galeano, the full time priest of OLRM celebrated the First Eucharist as the formal Chaplain of OLRM.  

Poet Priest Spencer Reece, Revda. Debra Andrew and Rev. Gustavo Galeano

Having a full time priest at OLRM is a blessing, but having a woman priest and a poet priest to do the First Eucharist at Holy Family Chapel was a big event! The Celebrations at Holy Family Chapel will be every other Sunday as the girls continue attending San Pablo Episcopal Church at Colonia Satelite.  

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Chinese New Year, The Year of the Snake, was a great reason to host a fundraiser for our girls at Our Little Roses. We had over 40 women, many longtime supporters of the girls, dressed in red (for good luck!) bringing in the New Year together.


 The Asian food was plentiful and delicious, the house decorated with all forms of Chinese Good Luck symbols and of course, lots of red! It was a luncheon that lasted hours. February is a good month to host a fundraiser as people are ready to party again after a break from the holidays. Coming up with a theme that is out of the ordinary helps make a fundraiser just that bit different and exciting for people to attend. Spreading the word about Our Little Roses is a way to get more volunteers and supporters. We handed out a list of ways each person could help us make our week with the girls a success. We suggested that the girls needed not only donations of clothes but books, craft supplies, help designing workshops and writing letters. And lastly, it was very successful in the money-raising department. Let’s share ideas of how we all help our girls. Ann, Charlotte Padrinos 2/2013

Our Little Roses Film chronicles the making of a film about an American-born Episcopal priest who travels to Honduras, the poorest Spanish-speaking country in the Western Hemisphere and, in that, the murder capital of the world - San Pedro Sula - to teach poetry to a score of orphaned teenage girls at Our Little Roses orphanage, at the edge of one of the city's ram shackle barrios.



Learn more at www.ourlittlerosesfilm.blogspot.com

OLR Documentary Film Blog

In December 2012, a documentary film crew led by Director Brad Coley began filming at an all-girls orphanage in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

Our Little Roses Ministries houses, feeds and educates more than 60 girls at a time, creating a model exception within its 10-foot walls against the backdrop of extreme poverty, violence and lawlessness surrounding the home - "a children's holocaust," a local priest says.

Drawn by a girl who lives at Our Little Roses

San Pedro Sula is a broken promise. Everyday, the metropolitan bus terminal fills with new faces of campesinos who have left tight-knit, barter-and-trade communities to find work in the nation's bustling industrial capital. But here, even low-paying jobs are hard to come by. Empty church pews suggest a breakdown in religious faith. Gangs are community. The harshest sign of that undelivered promise: a city churning with abandoned children - most of them girls.

And that's usually how girls find their way into Our Little Roses.

Each girl who comes through Our Little Roses must confront the same paradox: she must lose everything to get here. But once here, she stands to gain far more than she, or her parents, ever had. Read more...