ToaD Cruisers Give Back

To us, San Juan and St. Martin are cruise destinations.  To them, these Caribbean destinations are home.  While much of the tourism has recovered from the devastating hurricanes, Irma and Maria, the locals who live there are still recovering.  Help has been difficult to come by for these people, including the schools. 

On May 1 and 2, 2018, Travel On A Dream will visit both San Juan and St. Martin with a group of cruisers on the MSC Seaside.  While at each island, we plan to visit two schools that were affected by the hurricanes. 

Please help us help the children of these islands.  We have selected a school in each destination who needs our help. 

Items needed go beyond school supplies.  For the school in St. Martin, these 2-5 year old children are back in school, but lost almost all of their playground toys. 

For the school in San Juan, the special needs kids finally got back to school in December, three months after Maria passed over Puerto Rico.  This school helps children with disabilities, many of them blind, with vocational/occupational/skill development.  As such, their needs are for some therapeutic tools and hygiene tools, but also larger items such as kitchen, living room and laundry room equipment/machines/furniture. 

We are asking our cruisers to bring items from the list of needed things but many of  these items are large and not possible to bring with on the cruise, so we are requesting donations to be able to purchase what is needed for these children.  Here is the list we have been given by the schools:

For St. Martin, the children are in need of playground toys. Think Little Tikes or Step2 items. These are larger items and will be more challenging to get onboard. These include playhouses, treehouses, basketball sets, nothing too big.

For San Juan, the list is more extensive:

Radio
Washer, Dryer
Hair dryers, hair irons, hair brushes, hair products
Hand & Feet products, hotions
Stove with Oven, Commercial grade toaster, microwave
Pots & Pans
Dinnerware, plates
Mixer, baking racks & related equipment, blender, food processor, trays, pastry equipment
Air conditioners
Wall paint
Dining room set
Living room set, television, DVD
Sensory equipment (creams, brushes, texture gloves, massage machine, therapeutic rolls)

We want to show these schools how much we love visiting their islands and hope that they will recover from these horrible storms quickly, with the help and kindness of others.