Kathy’s Christmas Surprise!

Kathy McConnell, from Canada, was on the annual Quechua Benefit Peru Tour this November. We were in Arequipa about to begin our adventure! We started with a visit to Quechua Benefit’s Casa Chapi school in Arequipa where our secondary students who have graduated from Casa Chapi in Chivay live.


The group decided that they wanted to take the kids Christmas shopping. This was a very big deal for the kids. They had never been shopping before. The tour participants decided to purchase each child a coat and pair of pants of their choosing. That’s when the fun began. There were sparkling stars in the children’s eyes, excitement all around, and final choices did not come easy. The whole experience created a lot of joy. Everyone came closer together!

When we returned to the Yanahuara house, Kathy noticed that when the kids had put on their new clothes, their shoes looked old and beat up. She decided to write a $500 check and gave it to Gina, our manager in Arequipa, with instructions to buy all the kids new shoes.
Gina reported back with:

“Thanks to your donation, the boys and girls from the Yanahuara House were able get new running shoes.  As the kids are in the final period in school, they were studying and doing chores when I went to buy the sneakers. The kids were very grateful, and they liked the sneakers very much. In total we bought 11 pairs of running shoes.

As we still had considerable money, Claudia and I thought of buying something else. Something that is useful for them. So we bought 2 pairs of underwear for each of them and a pair of socks.

The kids of the Yanahuara House were very grateful for this second gift, because they said it always comes useful to have underwear. But we still had money, so we decided to buy underwear for all of the 75 children at Casa Chapi too, according to their ages and measures. And finally, we still had a little money left so we are giving the kids at Yanahuara a small Christmas party. Thank you so much for the opportunity to give them gifts this Christmas.”

Feliz Navidad!

Help the Casa Chapi kids get everything on their wish list.