Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - We hope all of you are enjoying your summer months! We have been quite busy with the end of the school year, animal clinic training and summer camp. Over the next 2 months, we have many volunteer activities that we would love for you to participate in. Please use the contact information below if you are interested in participating in, or volunteering for, any of the following activities:

Animal Clinics

PEACE animal clinics are in the Puerto Vallarta area for the rest of the summer. Below is the current schedule. We need people to help promote in the colonias, post signs, etc. We are also starting our Mobile Classroom and they have classes from Wednesday-Saturday. If you are interested in working with them, please contact me.

July 27-30 - Progreso
August 3-6 - Ramblases
August 10-13 - Lopez Mateos
August 17-20 - Barrio Santa Maria
August 24-27 - Floresta
August 31-September 3 - Progreso

Beach Cleanups

With the summer months bring rains and very dirty beaches! Our amazing beach cleanup coordinator, Jen Peters, has recently retired back to the US. We are so lucky to have had her for so long! We now have our friend Len who has taken over for Jen. Every 2 weeks, he meets volunteers at the mouth of the Rio Cuale in PV, in front of Oscar's, at 9 am and cleans for about an hour. This past week, they collected 14 bags! Please join us if you can.

Saturday August 6th, 9 am – Mouth of Rio Cuale – bags & gloves are provided

Saturday August 20th, 9 am - Mouth of Rio Cuale – bags & gloves are provided

Casa Campesina Makeover

Our roof is almost done! With the new roof, we now need to paint and fix up most of the house. We will need many hands to come down and paint the rooms, fix up the classroom, install our new tile roof in the outdoor patio, strip the garden, and much more. If you are interested in coming over to help on your own time, please let us know and we will organize it. However, we are having a big work day as well, join us if you can.

Thursday, August 11th, 10 am to 3 pm – Painting Casa Campesina - Meet us at our main offices in Punta de Mita, on Calle Otilio Montano, next to the main plaza of Emiliano Zapata. We will be working with locals, our interns, families and friends. Bring your own paintbrush and clothes to get dirty. We will provide snacks, waters & some materials.

Garden Wrap-up

Our Rivera-Cuale + PEACE Community Garden has been on hold a bit since the summer rains began. Working with several student groups, we were able to save seeds, pull some of the beds and fix it up as much as possible last month. We are planning to plant 4 trees in the 4 beds and flatten them to prepare for the next growing season. This way, we will have shade for the beds in the fall and fruit trees, donated by PV Botanical Gardens.

Friday, July 29th, 10 am to 2 pm – Garden Wrap-up - We will be cleaning beds, turning compost, planting trees and just cleaning up the beds to prepare them for the rains. Please bring water to drink, clothes that you can get dirty and a snack.

Translators Needed

If you are able to translate from English to Spanish, we need your help. We are constantly in need of translators to help us translate grants, newsletters, documents, web content, etc. Please contact us directly if you have any experience in this. You can do this from anywhere in the world.

Event Planning

Planning for our fall/winter events is in full swing. We have our 2nd Annual El Tigre 5K scheduled for November and our 2nd Annual ArteVida event scheduled for winter 2012. If you are interested and available to help us plan either of these events, please get in touch with me directly. It is a fun way to get involved!

Weekly Opportunities

Working with our Work for Food teams in the Mita or Bucerias area – You can help them with their community beautification projects, recycling collecting and clean ups. Please contact Nicole if you are interested and she will put you in touch with the coordinators.

If you have not yet found PEACE on Facebook, please do. We update photos and events there often.

Contact Information

Volunteer Director, Nicole Majewski: nicole(at)peacemexico.org or 044-322-182-3185

Casa Campesina Office: (329) 291-5157

PEACE, (Protection, Education, Animals, Culture, Environment) established in 2005, is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization made up of three main programs which focus on education, animal well-being, and environmental protection in the Bay of Banderas, Nayarit, Mexico. PEACE works hand-in-hand with communities in Mexico to provide holistic education, combined with community action programs that enable people to improve their quality of life as well as their financial stability.

For more information, please visit PeaceMexico.org or click HERE to read more about PEACE