Greetings. we hope you are all having a good time and enjoying the beginning of the spring.

As you may already know and read in our last newsletter, we have about 200 students for this school year which started last September 2005.

Having this number of the students means that we are having a larger number of the staff in addition to more grades. for example, we have three classrooms for the kindergarten. each classroom have 15 students. in addition, we are having two classrooms for the first grade with 22 students in each grade.

Therefore, new teachers have been employed for this year for the new classes which means an increase in our running costs especially the increase in the salaries budget.

Meeting the running costs has been a major challenge for us since the intifada started five years ago. since then, the economic situation had been badly affected. The unemployment reached about 70%. a great number of our students couldn't pay the school tuitions because their parents lost their jobs and were left unemployed. What makes it more complicated for us is that the school used to depend mainly on the students' tuitions as a major income resource to cover its running costs. since this income resource had drastically decreased; we ha started to count more on donations to keep functioning. in addition, in the last two years, we have been offering about 50 full scholarships for the children whose parents can't pay the tuitions and about 25 partial scholarships.

Offering the scholarships increased the financial load for our budget. therefore, we started a scholarships program aiming to provide scholarships for the students who can't pay tuition. We have started to ask our friends to sponsor the education for  a child who is in need for such a support. Each scholarship costs $500 including tuitions, transportations, textbooks and stationary. We managed to raise some scholarships for the needy students, but there are other students who are in need for our assistance and support to keep their enrollment at the school and to protect them from leaving their education and start working in an early age.

Therefore, we would ask for your support for this scholarships program. sponsoring a $500 scholarship for a needy student will be of great support for the child and his\her family and for the school as well. Thank you for your support.

With our best regards, Ghada Issa, The Hope Flowers School

ONATIONS AND OTHER SUPPORT

Online Credit Card Donations - Click the button

 In the U.S., you can make a tax- deductible donation to: Orange County Middle East Peace Fund, P. O. Box 5891, Orange, CA   92863-5891. Mark your donation "For Hope Flowers School." You can also give money directly to the school:

Chase Manhattan Bank-New York

A/C Arab Jordan Investment Bank

Amman – Jordan Chips ID 136008

SWIFT AJIBJOAX

A/C Palestine Investment Bank

For Further Credit of "the Hope Flowers School"

A/C NO. 73535

Bethlehem Branch 76-411

Palestine