Your Gift and Your Motivation!

“The past is your lesson. The present is your gift. The future is your motivation.”     Anonymous

Graduation Day Coming Soon..!

This has been a very challenging year for the Copey Learning Center. And it has also been one of the most telling in terms of commitment and sustainability. The year began in extraordinary fashion with Emma Terry as the assigned volunteer. She had taught a double semester and the center enjoyed the ease of service and success she provided during her teaching experience. 

Then, during the balance of the year we sought after the ideal volunteer teachers to replace Emma. This was our plan A. However, our efforts were not successful. We had to go to plan B. As it turned out, plan B worked out very well.

Ariana, our leader at the center, had to take on the added task of teaching and was assisted by a young teacher, Michael. Now looking back we can see this was a great experience for Ariana.

“Friends” who have been around a while know about Ariana. She was one of the two students who traveled to the USA in 2017 under the Pathway Project.

Ariana (left) shown with classmate Fatima at Emory & Henry College in 2017.

Ariana is not just a classroom teacher who had to be called to duty as a “fill in” or replacement. She is a successful member of the Copey community and a graduate of the Copey Learning Center where she spent several years learning English. Having achieved success, she moved on to higher education to obtain her teaching credentials. In hindsight, sometimes plan B is better than plan A. 

Overall, this has been a great opportunity for Ariana. Adding teaching experience to her day to day leadership responsibilities for the center equips her to better assist a new volunteer teacher when the 2024 semester begins.

Ariana shown at our first annual Reception in 2017 fourth from the left)

Ariana,…on behalf of all the “Friends” everywhere, thank you for all the hard work, long hours, and personal sacrifices you encountered this semester. You and I, plus all the “Friends” look optimistically to the end of this semester in a few weeks and look forward to a whole new and promising semester in 2024. 

Graduation will be near the end of November as the final date is not yet determined. There is a chance the graduation may be covered on Zoom. I will keep you posted. 

Robert Barnard Update…!

My friend Bob is back in Jaco, Costa Rica. He came back to Washington state last December with serious medical issues. After nearly 12 months of medical attention including a heart valve repair, he is resting comfortably back in the Costa Rican community he now calls home. We all wish him well and a successful and continuous recovery. 

Student Photos to share…!

Please enjoy the photos below of Copey Learning Center students busy at work. Some of these students are only receiving this English education because many of you have provided needed tuition assistance under the Anne G. Broady Scholarship Fund. 

Yes, the year has been very challenging but your support both financially and non-financially kept the center working and the students learning. As we look at these young faces, we can anticipate one day hosting one or more of them as participants of a future Pathway Project. 

We all know this is a great possibility. When we began the Pathway Project in 2016, many of the students were under the age of ten years old. Such as the two most recent Pathway Project recipients Eric (left) and Margarita (right) shown below, who traveled this past June 2023 to the USA. 

Therefore, there is both hope and high expectations that these young students may realize a dream come true one day when they show up on the campus of Emory & Henry College. Today, these young students are inspired to learn and eager to earn their chance to follow the previous thirteen Copey Learning Center students to the USA.

For Friends of Copey, we can enjoy the fact that we have been involved in making dreams come true. 

Soon, we will be ending one more year of our special relationship with the Copey Learning Center and looking back over the ten years, we can all say… “Job well done.”