Melissa Aybar wrote -

My family is from Dominican Republic. My aunt is a teacher who over the years was given more and more students with learning disabilities because her school felt she would be the best person there to help them. These students were put in classrooms with other students who did not face their same issues, and therefore felt like their needs were being ignored -- which they were. My aunt made the decision to help these students after school and went on to get a psychology degree. For over a decade she has been helping these students out of her home because she knows they need it.

I was inspired and I wanted to help them in a more concrete, substantial manner. Reader to Reader offered Amherst College students an opportunity to design their own literacy project with their help and now here I am on crowdrise looking for people who have also been inspired.

This project aims to help students that have been dealt an unlucky card in life: a learning disability. Esperanza is a project that will provide students in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic by providing them with a previously non-existant special education program.

These students need SO much:
- books
- boards
- desks
- chairs
- notebooks and pencils
- BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS! and more books
- computers
- educational games
- a learning space
AND SO MUCH MORE!
I need your help in order to make this happen (and we WILL make this happen.)

I will be working with Reader to Reader. Reader to Reader is based on the campus of Amherst College. It is a public charity that dedicates itself to bringing books that are free of charge to under-resourced schools and libraries across the United States, and now the world. Reader to Reader serves the nation’s poorest communities, including inner city schools, and believes that educational facilities that are well-stocked with books is a necessity, not a luxury. This is where donations will go.

I named my project Esperanza because it means hope. I have hope that this project will succeed and that these students will never lose the Esperanza that they can learn and they cam also succeed.