The Starfish School Thanks Worldfund's Director of Programs for Volunteer Teacher

September 1, 2009

Dear Michelle,

Once again, we would like to thank you for helping our "Starfish". 

Among the many things you have done for Escola Estrela do Mar, we are very grateful for your recommending Rene Bangert to us. Rene just concluded 2 months of volunteering with us in which she taught geography-and more- to our elementary students. 

As a volunteer, her organization, preparation and execution of each class was excellent. The kids are very sensitive to the flow of the class and, in her case, were immediately engaged in her lessons. Rene made sure to make what was taught was personally meaningful to the students, which is very important in getting and keeping attention. She also stressed something that is often forgotten but that we consider essential to the education of our students; their personal growth-how they treat others and their environment. This type of education is exactly what we believe will make the students successful in the academic/professional sense, and likely to grow into kind and charitable adults.

On top of all of this, Rene left us with a very beautiful "thank you" card in which she enclosed a very generous gift to the school, which we will put to the purchase of books.

So thanks to you, Michelle, we got to "have" Rene for a short time, and our students are more knowledgeable about geography- and better personally- because of the time she shared with us.

Abracos,
Claudia and David