Wondering what your gifts can accomplish this year?
The “Wish List” from Mar Elias and our other partners is always greater than our resources, but these are projects where your giving in 2013 can truly make a difference:
- Fitness Center Exercise Equipment. Pilgrims of Ibillin raised funds to renovate several rooms in the gymnasium so they could be opened as a community-oriented Fitness Center. The exercise rooms and new locker rooms are finished, thanks to $35,000 sent by Pilgrims of Ibillin donors in the past. However, until we can send an additional $30,000 for exercise equipment, the fitness center can’t open for public use. The leaders at MEEI place a very high priority on finishing this, both to enhance the Phy.Ed. program at MEEI and to build better relationships and give positive opportunities to community members.
- Scholarships are always deeply needed. Already 65% of MEEI students need financial aid, even though tuition is very low for private schooling. Then in the last few months, Israel cut the subsidy they give private Christian schools by another 20%, meaning tuition will have to be raised again in 2012. We also give scholarship funds to The Open House in Ramle, The Friends Schools in Ramallah, and the Lutheran Schools in the West Bank.
- The high school needs 60 new computers and monitors to upgrade the computer labs. The library also needs a new server and just two up-to-date computers. We had hoped to send money for these projects in 2011, but fell short of our goals, even though we had more individual donors and donations than ever before. The old computers can’t run updated software for science and tech classes, so we hope to meet this need soon.
- SMARTboards for high school classrooms and the middle school science lab are on 2012’s priority list, along with training for teachers in using these critical new classroom tools. So far Mar Elias only has 2 SMARTboards. One is in the physics lab, and a physics teacher says he can now teach in one week a lesson that used to take a month to convey with older methods.