“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
― Thomas A. Edison
Happy Belated Thanksgiving to all “Friends”. I am back from Las Vegas where I had the pleasure of sharing turkey, my favorite potato salad, and corn pudding with my family. I hope we can all be thankful for what we are blessed with.
The Copey community can be thankful for dodging most of the recent hurricane activity that hit the country last week. As I have heard, Hurricane Otto had minimum impact on the central part of the country where Copey is located. This was not the case northeast near the southern border of Nicaragua. There are reported 10 deaths and as many as 5,500 citizens had to be evacuated as the hurricane passed through that area on Thursday and Friday. The latest report I have shows 5 fatalities in Nicaragua. I have been to the coast on the eastern side of Costa Rica. A tropical storm or hurricane can do a lot of damage to the weak structures I saw and the exposure and lack of safe shelters from harsh winds and rains.
As previously reported, the Learning Center is now closed for the summer. These are a couple of graduation pictures from the Learning Center. Keep in mind, graduation pertains to the successful completion of a designed English curriculum.The students and the members of the Copey Learning Center Board of Directors concluded the year believing this has been a very successful year. Some “Friends” have said:

These are budding stars who are making progress in learning English. We hope to see many of them competing in the National Language Festival next year and some day see them on the campus of Emory & Henry College.
In the upcoming Posts, I will highlight many of the accomplishments and achievements “Friends of Copey” contributed to in 2016. In the next couple weeks we will also outline our “2017 Goals” which is expected to be even more exciting than 2016. We now have two full years of experience and we have a much better idea of what we can do and do it well. Just as 2016 out did 2015, we have a lot of great expectations ahead of us. Recall, we still have some BIG news still pending for 2017.
I LOVE graduation ceremonies. The photograph is beautiful. I congratulate all the students and friends at Copey Learning Center. A shout out to all the teachers and staff who teach and mentor the students as well. I am thankful to be a part of this great adventure. Happy Thanksgiving to all as we continue to realize how much we have to be thankful for.