Guatemala, Rio Dulce. Rio Dulce means literally “Sweet River”. As a Guatemalan I never thought about the meaning of the name, until a tragic event put Rio Dulce on the world wide map. The tragic death of Daniel Dryden (66) and the serious injury to his wife, Nancy Dryden from Alaska happened on the night of August 9 of 2008 and the World got to know the Rio Dulce with a bitter taste.
There is also other news form the river and it is sweet news. The Rio Dulce ex-pat community has been involved in charitable and development projects for a long time. They see needs and they try to help. The story we will tell today is about shoes and little children from the school in the village Caserio San Francisco near Rio 
Dulce.
June Fedorchuck got involved with helping build a new school for the village Caserio San Francisco. She and her daughter Tracey noticed on her last visit to the school that the majority of the children had no shoes. June Fedorchuck managed to get a donation of shoes and got them delivered to the kids with the collaboration of Kamal Jahanbein, who brought them to Guatemala, and Gina Menendez McFarlin, who delivered them to the school.
96 pairs of “Crocs” went to 96 happy children of the kindergaden section of the school.
June was able to get the information of surplus shoes from Crocs and then get the right people on board. She called the Crocs Company and they informed her that Mr. Liam Carstens of the Brotherbrother.org charitable organization in Pittsburgh, Pa. was in charge of the donations of their product. Mr. Carstens main condition was that the shoes had to be delivered to the recipients fast. June contacted Kamal Jahanbein, who provided much of the funding for the school in the village Caserio San Francisco, and he was coming to Guatemala in August. The shoes where brought to Guatemala and delivered to the kids by Gina Menendez McFarlin.
Don Gato, Star photographer among other duties, from the Rio Dulce Chisme Vindicator: riodulcechisme.com, took the photos when the children got the shoes. The pictures speak for themselves. Now June Fedorchuck is on the mission to get shoes for the rest of the children in the school. The lady seen in these pictures is Gina Menendez McFarlin, who is June’s alter ego in Guatemala.
At The Guatemala Times we look for stories that inspire, entertain, inform and educate our readers. We hope this story from the Sweet River – Rio Dulce, will inspire some people to imitate people like June Fedorchuck and the group involved in improving the school in caserio San Francisco.
About the “Rio Dulce Chisme Vindicator”, we are very curious about the name. That will be another story. “Chisme” means gossip, so we can only speculate …………….
Story from June Fedorchuck, edited by Editor Roy McNett for the “Rio Dulce Chisme Vindicator”, riodulcechisme.com. Pictures: Don Sampson "Don Gato" Photo Editor riodulcechisme.com
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