* Infant Formula: Our most critical need. Powdered, all brands. Yes, we can use formula past its expiration date.
* Infant and Children’s Vitamins:
* Pedialyte or other electrolyte balanced drink
* Antibiotic cream, any brand
* Infant and Children’s and Adult Tylenol or other brand fever reducer
* Pre-Natal Vitamins, Folic Acid and Adult Multivitamins
* Infant or children’s Antibiotics: Liquid or powdered, not tablets
* Baby Clothes: Used, in good condition, is fine.
* Baby blankets and receiving blankets and under-pads: Used in good condition is fine
* Disposable Diapers: All sizes
* Cloth Diapers, diaper pins, rubber pants: Used, in good condition, is fine.
* Baby Bottles, Nipples, bottle brushes etc.
* Small Infant Toys, stuffed animals or Other Baby Items:
   These are given as gifts to encourage pregnant women to be tested.
* Little girls hair bows, elastics and barrettes
* Children’s small toys, stickers or coloring books and crayons.
   Given to siblings during home visits or testing clinics’
* Miscellaneous Medical Supplies: Just about anything. If we cant use it we donate it to the hospital here
   that is in need of almost everything. We particularly are in need of masks, rubber gloves, alcohol wipes,
   medical tape, cotton balls, gauze.
* Hotel sized soaps, lotions, perfume samples etc. Used to help women feel better about themselves
* Condoms: Latex only. Any brand
* Printer cartridges Epson C85
* Paper (any kinds or color), pens, and any office supplies to keep our office running

Every little bit helps. U.S. or Canadian donors can send packages to a shipping company in Florida, which has very kindly agreed to help us get them here. Send to the following:

Fundacion Sol
C/O Val Nelson
10025 - 116 Way
Medley, Florida 33178

Cash donations are most helpful to us and will be issued a Canadian tax receipt.

The Dawn Land Children’s Health Care Foundation
C/O Kate McDonnell, 17905 98A Ave. Edmonton, Alberta, T5T 3L3

Visit their website at: www.thedawnlandfoundation.com

Initial press release in the Honduras, September 8, 2008

"Familias Saludables is the AIDS project on the island, established six years ago that provides counseling, testing, clothing, medication, baby formula etc. for families living with AIDS. Our Morgan Jane Project provides baby formula for all infants exposed to HIV in Roatan, which dramatically reduces their rate of infection. Our success in this project has attracted worldwide attention. With the help of many of you we have been able to almost consistently assure there is milk for these babies. We often have babies who have mothers who are drug addicted or are unable, for a host of reasons, to care for them. Out of necessity we have developed a new program that will operate out of my housing complex (in Sandy Bay) to care for infants short term (0 to 4 months) After we
deal with the drug addictions, medical concerns, and/or HIV exposure with these children we hope that we can assist the mothers in being able to care for these infants. If not, they will be placed into local families of any nationality (but only residents of Honduras). It is our dream that one day we will be able to build a separate building and combine it with a pediatric HIV treatment center. This will be named the Morgan Jayne Infant Care Center, after an amazing young Canadian woman who has become an inspiration for our program. Of course, like all things here in Honduras, things don't always happen in the right order, and we are all ready to bring our first baby in this program home on Monday! We are desperately in need of cribs, strollers, swings, baby clothes etc. This baby on Monday will be sleeping in a baby bathtub! Please us know if you have any baby equipment or supplies you have at this address.

Thank you!!!
Valerie Nelson
Directora,
Familias Saludables "

What a chance to make a difference...Morgan is smiling down...Fred

Familias Saludables Update
Wow time has flown since my last update. So many exciting things have happened the past few months. These are a few of our successes:

1) We have greatly outgrown our little offices so or plans for a new building have continued. Our funds donated by the Morgan Jayne Project for our building were used during Hurricane Felix but we have had those funds doubled and returned to us by “The Peace Corps” so we are working right now on the title to our property, a small piece of land in the middle of Coxen Hole that will become “the Women’s’ Wellness Center” containing our empowering women’s AIDS project, our mother to child transmission reduction project (including the Morgan Jayne Project formula project, a midwifery service and an education center for health issues for women and children.) We are hoping to get lots of volunteers out next summer to help in the building process. We are very excited to begin his new phase.

2) I presented our program in Copan again this year and took a panel of children affected by AIDS with me. They brought the house to tears as they told a stunned audience of three hundred how they were spit at, mocked, beaten up and urinated on by other children once they knew that either they were infected, or their parents were. Our presentation was saddened by the news by phone, about an hour earlier, that her teacher had beaten one of our children, an eight-year-old girl, in Roatan to death. The stigma is hard to fight but we certainly made some headway that day.

3) Our empowering women’s team has done over fifty presentations throughout the island demanding their rights as women with HIV. They have been met first with stunned silence and disbelief that a person here would admit they are HIV positive, and then amazingly positive response. Homemakers magazine did a nine page spreadon women of the project last month, the longest article they have ever done.

4) Our infant mortality rate remains dramatically lowered due to the Morgan Jayne Project. We were amused to hear that our local pediatrician accepted an award form the federal health dept on the lowered infant mortality rate in Roatan but gratified that at least the government had noticed. At the same time we are still losing too many infants and their mothers. We were saddened to have lost three-year-old Angel and his mother within a week of each other a month ago.

5) We are preparing for our annual Christmas party! We write up the list of kids every year and send parts to different people, The Morgan Jayne project, The Amigos for Honduras and Helping Honduras Kids and many other people have come through amazingly well this year despite our increase to one hundred and fifty children on the combined lists. Our entire garage is devoted being Santa’s workshop. This is not just about giving poor kids presents, but a huge opportunity for our clients to get together in a completely social atmosphere to do something normal, without mention of AIDS. It gives these kids a chance to play with each other and feel lucky for once. This party has become he envy of half the island kids and is a ticket only event, the one time its good to be affected by AIDS on the island. Every year we see a couple more of our clients face their illness by walking in the door and spending four hours with others who are open about being HIV positive.

6) I met with The Lisa Lopez Foundation in September on the mainland and had the opportunity to spend some time with Lisa brother. Lisa was the lead singer from a group called TLC and was killed here a few years ago in a car accident. Her family have set up a Foundation and we are hoping to work with them in the future

7) We have been working with the new Human Rights Commission (human rights in Honduras, a completely new concept for many here!) and our office has been established as a satellite office for them in Roatan. This means that women discriminated against can file complaints in our office and they are sent to the national office to prosecute. Several cases have all ready been prosecuted in San Pedro Sula, so Hondurans are sitting up and taking notice.

8) Our Women’s housing project has taken off! We have seven homes in the construction phase and our first home should be ready with in weeks! The difference in these families lives will be amazing, to have home security, running water, power etc and separate bedroom for the children will give them improved health and increased human dignity! We still need four more at five thousand dollars each.

9) We just finished World AIDS Day activities including parades, speeches and a benefit concert done by local youth. Wonderful to see so many people working towards saving this island.

10) Change for Children, who funds our women’s empowerment project, along with the Canadian Government, came out last month to talk and despite the funding ending this month for this project they seemed positive to helping us fund our upcoming children’s project.

The most wonderful thing about working here is that you see such rapid change here. Despite the fact the obstacles seem immeasurable at times overall the personal satisfaction of seeing the changes happening is so gratifying .We have come a long way in five years!

Valerie Nelson

Directora
Familias Saludables
Projecto por Mujeres con SIDA

Email received from Valarie Nelson – Director: Familias Saludables (Healthy Families), May 15, 2006
to Morgan’s Father Fred Makowecki

I’m going to send you the info about our program and suggested donations that has our shipping address on the end. I was thinking about how much it helped me after my daughter Dawn’s death to supply the orphanage in Haiti and I hope it can bring some of that to you and all with this. We have a project within our program that supplies HIV exposed babies and children with formula, food and clothes and toys. We've never had a name for the project and now I know why, Its now the Morgan Jayne Project. If you or some of her friends would like to contribute great. Here are some pictures for you as well so you can see some of the people we help. I can’t tell you how many times I am working and I will see Dawn’s smile or the glint in her eyes in another child and know that what I am doing is a tribute to Dawn. Our girls are together now.

Email received from Valarie Nelson – Director: Familias Saludables (Healthy Families), May 16, 2006
to Morgan’s Father Fred Makowecki

Dear Fred,
I just want to let you know that ever since helping you adopt Morgan, 18 years ago, there has been a close connection and a place in my heart. You will be sad for a long long time but remember that’s not what Morgan would have wanted ..remember by living life you are honoring her.

Here some of the information about our work. If you have any other questions please email us and we will try to answer any question to the best of our ability.

1) My husband Klaus and I here for life. We return to Canada to visit and fund raise once a year but that’s it...this is not a 2 year project but a lifetime project (or until its unnecessary). We brought our two kids with us of course but we've adopted two more kids whose mothers died with AIDs and my daughter Jane (now 22) came down a year ago to help us with the kids and she has just adopted a newborn as well. We live in a tiny house that now houses Klaus, Jane and I and 5 kids aged 10, 7,7,7, and 2 months.

We are essentially a grass roots project running on a very low budget. Our rent is $300 US a month and that and our power bill (also $300) is a struggle every month. The grants pay for testing kits and ARVs and our transportation to other islands ( we serve all five islands) but little else. I just don’t want you thinking we are a huge operation because basically were poor but honorable (gee, just like PASA...story of my life...except that describes me now, too! LOL)

2) All Cash donations and cheques go to The Dawn Land Children’s Foundation in Edmonton as we are a program under their umbrella. They can issue tax receipts, as we are a registered charity, and deposit 100% of the donations to us.

3) We are all volunteers, the only salaries we pay are honorariums to ten of our HIV+ moms who work for us in an Empowering Women Project funded by the Canadian Government(CIDA), the Muttart Foundation and Change for Children.

4) We basically have 5 projects here: The Empowering Women Project which helps HIV+ women educate others about HIV. The Healthy Babies/Sunny Futures project that is funded by Global Fund and provides testing for all pregnant women to reduce the transmission rate. A palliative care project that is in the infancy stage. The Morgan Jayne Project which supplies HIV+ moms with baby formula, clothes, over the counter medications, etc., to further reduce the rate of AIDS transmission. A Christmas program where we try to get Canadian donors to pick a child off our list of kids who are living with AIDS in our program (about 30 kids) and have them send a gift for their chosen child. We also collect other small toys and distribute them throughout the island in the poorest areas ( Klaus dresses up like Santa) Last year we saw 1000 kids!

Email received from Valarie Nelson – Director: Familias Saludables (Healthy Families), May 19, 2006
to Morgan’s Father Fred Makowecki

Hi. The dedication ceremony was great! Everyone that was invited, attended. The media, the mayor, the governor, the chief police, the owner of the biggest resort here, the director of the board of education, etc, about 20 people. Twelve of them have agreed to sit on our advisory board. You thanked me for what I am doing, but thank you. It sounds like your work there as well as community support here will create a solid program. Right now we live week to week when it comes to baby formula, moms never know if we will have milk the next week and they can’t afford to buy it. The Morgan Jayne Project will assure HIV+ moms do not have to breastfeed their babies and risk giving them HIV, that there will always be enough formula for their children. It will ensure they have clothes and blankets for their babies as well as vitamins and other essential items they need.

The Morgan Jayne Project will save babies lives.

Click here to download a brochure about the project.