HOW TO SUPPORT the Binghamton-El Charcón Sister City Project

Your contributions help us fund a regional Youth Group (including the crafts project in El Charcón), scholarships for four students, leadership training, and the new Arts Initiative. Beyond a direct contribution, there are many ways to support our efforts.

Do you belong to a group that could sponsor a scholarship student?
Can you interest your church or office in switching to fair traded coffee?
Do you know a cafe, beauty parlor or any other place where we could set up a small display stand with El Charcón crafts and our “Images of El Charcón” note cards?
If you can help, please call us at (607)798-0787, or e-mail us at suzanneg@stny.rr.com

Whatever the form of your support, it is vital to sustaining the work of our sister city project.

VOLUNTEER
Many hands make light work! If you would like to volunteer, these are some of our current needs: Translation Spanish <-> English; Selling Crafts & Cards; Help organize Fundraising events; Database management; Help with the Newsletter; Web design and maintenance; Graphic design; Promote our work in the media.
Contact Suzanne at suzanneg@stny.rr.com or Jeremy at (607)785-7950
Together we can do great things!

DONATE
Support our sister city project with a contribution. BESCSP is a 501-c-3 organization. Your contribution is tax deductible. Please make your check out to BECSCP and mail it to BECSCP, PO Box 444 SVS, Binghamton, NY 13903.

Become a Sustainer by pledging an automatic annual contribution to the national network for US-El Salvador Sister Cities. Whatever the amount you pledge, it will offer us the peace of mind of knowing that the national network will be able to count on that income as it continues to support our local committee. Click here for the form.

** Order your Fair Trade Cafe Salvador coffee.

** Check out our note cards with images from El Charcón.

CONTACT
Phone: Jeremy (607) 785-7950
Email: Suzanne Geoghegan
Address: BECSCP, PO Box 444 SVS, Binghamton, NY 13903

Whatever your form of support, it will be sincerely appreciated.

We have accomplished a lot since we began in 1992. We have sent clothes, medicines, fabrics and sewing machines to El Charcón; raised money for a potable water system, a tailoring workshop, a chapel and benches, an education fund, and a regional youth project; collected books in Spanish to start a library in El Charcón; sent election observers and delegations to El Salvador, and arranged for community representatives to visit us here; responded to Hurricane Mitch and the 2001 earthquakes, sending money that has been used, among other things, to build retaining walls in El Charcón and decent housing in a nearby community.

We currently support four scholarship students, enabling them to continue their studies beyond the level available in their local communities. We fund a regional youth project that organizes educational workshops, leadership training and sports activities for young people in eight rural communities, including El Charcón. We support El Charcón itself as it organizes internally to handle effectively the many problems it faces.

Our work through the years has been backed by your financial support and by the tiny staff of the national US-El Salvador Sister Cities network. Jim Goronson, our national coordinator, knits together the work of 20 sister city committees across the country. He also handles the money we raise for projects and does outreach that makes us more effective wh en lobbying on issues that concern El Salvador.

In El Salvador Teresa Perez and Jesse Kates-Chinoy facilitate communication and promote the work with our 'sistered' Salvadoran communities. They visit the villages regularly, so can offer us invaluable information and advice. They send us project updates and reports and pass along the letters that go back and forth. These dedicated people make it possible for us to continue our work on behalf of El Salvador's rural poor. While we'll continue to raise money for projects, the sister city committees also need to pay the salaries and operating expenses of our (underpaid) national staff.