Pride is all over this success story from our new cooking class for kids in Puerto Palomas–one of our Autumn 2024 special events.
Fall weather continued to be warmer than usual in Palomas with temperatures in the 80’s. Moderate temperatures helped us accomplish all kinds autumn special events as well as daily duties. In addition, to our usual activities like:
- teaching nutrition classes to all grades at two elementary schools,
- providing mental health evaluations to 35 children referred by their teachers,
- cleaning and reseeding our three community greenhouses with cool weather crops, and
- offering free zumba classes every day,
our staff organized several Autumn SPECIAL EVENTS in October.
Special Activities
Government officials from the region and from the funding agency, the North American Development Bank attended a kickoff event for our new papercrete project.
A Community Health Fair on October 26 in the Central Park offered flu shots, free healthy burritos to eat, and bags of veggies to take home. Attendees attended demos of our sustainable technology projects.
High School students created an altar for the Day of the Dead in our office. It memorialized several people important to Border Partners who have died during the last year.
New Cooking Program Begins
We are especially excited about starting COOKING CLASSES FOR CHILDREN. Every Thursday afternoon twenty eager, elementary students come to our office. There, they create their own healthy snacks. Led by two of our health educators, the kids have already made chia pudding with strawberries, individual pizzas, fruit kabobs, oatmeal crackers and more. This cooking class is part of our Healthy Eating grant from the Paso del Norte Health Foundation. This is a class we definitely want to continue!
Strategic Planning for Future
And one other thing: our board and staff met together twice in October to update our Strategic Plan for Border Partners. We’ve talked about our strengths and weaknesses, opportunities that could help us grow and threats that may limit our effectiveness. The next meeting will focus on our vision for what Border Partners will look like in five years. We’ll keep you posted.