Quechua Benefit
Quechua Benefit is an organization dedicated to helping the Quechua people in the highlands of Peru.
The Madre Antonia Community Kitchen was officially inaugurated on March 27th in a joyful community celebration. It will provide a minimum of 108,000 hot meals a year. We are extremely grateful for your efforts to make this possible and bring back a source of stability for this small community in the Colca Valley.
We are happy to report that Ichupampa is rising from the rubble left by an earthquake in August 2016. Thanks to you, the Sister Antonia Memorial Kitchen in Ichupampa is nearing completion. The Quechua Benefit team was onsite last week, and the building will be up and running no later than March 15th.
Construction has been progressing extremely well on the Sister Antonia Community Kitchen in Ichupampa. The crews got the foundations in, the first floor walls up, and the second floor poured in record time. We are currently ahead of schedule.
Construction started last week with the demolition and removal of the existing building. This week the foundations are being dug. Over the next 16 weeks, you will see the construction rise up. We are targeting a mid-March completion.
Nonprofits often report on their activities by quantifying the results in mathematical terms, but these numbers do not begin to describe the work that hundreds of loving volunteers and generous donors do to create the math. The most recent trip to Peru by a Quechua Benefit team is a case in point – the story of people moving small mountains to make an immediate difference in people’s lives.
Thanks to your generosity after the devastating cold snap in Southern Peru, we delivered 2,317 polar fleece jacket and pant sets for children, 1,535 warm blankets, and 5,000 doses of Vitamin C. Additionally, we surpassed our fundraising goal for the Ichupampa Community Kitchen!
So far, we have raised $35,620 toward the $70,000 needed to build a new kitchen for the people of Ichupampa. Mayor Paricela, the Elderly Association, and the group managing the previous kitchen all identified this project as their number one priority.
The August 15th earthquake in Peru reduced Ichupampa to rubble. Quechua Benefit recently met with the parish priest and the town’s new mayor, whose heart aches for the people she was recently elected to lead. She identified Ichupampa’s greatest need – to rebuild the community kitchen that had been serving its community for many years.
Quechua Benefit has identified a major project in the center of Ichupampa, which is to rebuild the Community Kitchen which was destroyed by the earthquake. The Mayor asked if we could take responsibility for the financing and construction of the building. We are asking for your help to make this possible!
The Colca Valley was hit by a 5.4 earthquake whose epicenter was 15 minutes from Casa Chapi. As fate would have it, the quake virtually destroyed the poorest community in the valley — Ichupampa. This small village’s population includes a disproportionate share of elderly people. Eighty percent of the homes and buildings in the town were destroyed. There is no running water, sewer, or shelter for the homeless.
