Our Family Journey

This year we again would like to offer you the opportunity to
sponsor one or more Guatemalan families with a CHRISTMAS TAMALE FOOD
BASKET We have many families, mostly single, abandoned & widowed
mothers, who simply cannot afford to provide the traditional
Christmas celebration meal for their family.

A tamale is a traditional indigenous food consisting of steam-cooked
corn meal dough with or without a filling. Tamales can be filled with
meats and sliced chillis or any preparation according to taste. The
tamale is generally wrapped in a corn husk or plantain leaves before
cooking, and during Christmas holidays, tamales of rice flour are a
special treat for Guatemalans. The preparation time of this type of
tamal is long, due to the amount of time required to cook down and
thicken the rice flour base.

One food basket costs US$30 and will provide a Christmas Tamale
celebration meal for a hungry and needy family of 12 or more.

The food for the Christmas basket will include:

A bottle of oil and 15 lbs of rice to make the tamales
a loaf of bread with which they eat the tamales at midnight
5lbs of meat
1lb of coffee
a block of drinking chocolate (a traditional drink taken at
midnight)
raisins for the tamales, grapes, tomatos, apples and sugar
leaves to wrap the tamales, cloves, pepper, sesame and pumpkin seeds.

These are the requirements to make the midnight Christmas meal of
Tamale.

The plastic basket that holds all the food will also have many uses
in the home such stacking and washing dishes, holding food or going
to the market.

We started this project last year because it was brought to my
attention that two children that we sponsor to go to school had been
very miserable. These two children from San Jorge had no food in the
house on Christmas Eve, they were crying because they would not have
the traditional Christmas tamales to eat at midnight along with the
drinking chocolate. At midnight they went from house to house hoping
someone would give them a tamale. It made me wonder how many other
families could also not afford to celebrate Christmas, once we
started looking into it, we realized there were a lot of families who
would not be able to afford to buy the ingredients for their Christmas
meal.

So this year once again we are hoping to give out as many baskets as
we can.

Last year we were fortunate enough to buy, make up and distribute
215 baskets. We are happy to say that we already have 60 baskets
sponsored for this year. However, we would like nothing more than to
send out more baskets than in 2006.

If you would like to sponsor one or more baskets for Christmas 2007,
please choose the amount and click the 'Donate' button below. This
will take you to our on-line payment service which will process your
credit or debit card quickly and securely. If you wish to dedicate
your donation to someone, please email us on
instructions@mayanfamilies.net, include your online transaction number and let us know the details
of your donation. Alternatively, if you would like to send a check,
please download and print this form

. Once completed, please include this form with your check made
payable to Mayan Families and mail to:

MAYAN FAMILIES - 2609 Hartford St. San Diego, CA. U.S.A. 92110-2315.

Already donated a basket or two?

If so, I thank you sincerely for your donation and if you would
like, I would be very grateful if you decide to forward this email to
any of your friends and family who may also be interested in providing
a needy family in Guatemala with a great Christmas Gift.

Thank you so much for all your support. Everyone here at Mayan
Families is grateful and proud to put your donation to effective use
with our Christmas Tamale Basket program

Best wishes,

Sharon and the Team at Mayan Families

$30.00 - Christmas Tamale Basket 2007
$60.00 - 2 x Christmas Tamale Baskets 2007
$90.00 - 3 x Christmas Tamale Baskets 2007
$120.00 - 4 x Christmas Tamale Baskets 2007
$150.00 - 5 x Christmas Tamale Baskets 2007

N.B. If you wish to donate more than 5 baskets, please email us
directly on instructions@mayanfamilies.net