Villa 31 (part 3 of 3)

To some extent, if you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all.

-Agnew, Spiro Theodore

This is the first time I use a quote that I do not agree with. Villa 31 is not really a slum, not at least how I have seen before. It is a makeshift city created by the people who have come to live there. In this case, it is a city within a city.

The school we went to on this day was most likely the nicest structure within this city. Compared to its surroundings it was a modern marvel and had 1,500 kids within its walls and tin roofs.

So, for half a day, Sugar & Spice closed up shop and went to the Villa 31 to set up a reading corner and stock it full of books. They say that pictures are worth a thousand words...




We could not venture out of the school with a camera in hand. The professional photographer, Caitlin Kelly, did that once and she was nearly separated from her camera for doing so. We did not want to run that risk. Besides, we were not there for sightseeing anyway, we had a much more important task at hand.

This is a peek at what our donations to Fundación Leer can do and have been doing. Rest assured that with every purchase of our cookies we set aside a percentage of our sales that go towards making sure that more and more kids have access to books.

In the future, I am toying with the possibility of inviting you, my dear readers and fans of Sugar & Spice, to participate with us, if you are interested in helping out directly. I guarantee the smiles and experiences shared that day will leave you hungry to help out even more and you will sleep like a baby that night for sure.