Linda

ACCBoquete's Tuesday Night BINGO is tonight, March 30th, and will be held "every other" Tuesday at LaPosada Restaurant in the large back dining room. Doors open at 5pm, Balls drop at 6pm, buy in is $15.00. We also have a 50/50 raffle. MINSA regulations will be followed. Join us for an evening of fun. The money we collect goes to help Boquete's needy families and children and other charitable organizations. We are accepting any old cell phones for the local school kids to use to attend school classes.

Dear Friends! ACCBoquete needs your help!!!!! Remember how much fun it was to put together Christmas cookie bags for the needy kids in Boquete? Well, ACCBoquete is going to repeat that event for Easter! Can you help us? On Saturday, March 27th starting at 11am, and we should be done by 2pm, we will be meeting at the Club House in Boquete Country Club, the same place as we put together the Christmas bags. Take the street along side of San Francisco Plaza up towards Palmira but turn left into Boquete Country Club. Take the first right after going thru the gate and go until you see the Clubhouse on your right. ACCB has the bus from Esperanza scheduled to make the Easter Bag delivery on Monday, March 29th to 600 Indigenous kids. What we need: Wrapped candy, chocolate kisses in colored plastic Easter eggs, cookies (wrapped individually), pencils, small toys, anything you can think of...be creative, it has to fit in a sandwich size bag with handles. We have all the bags needed. We are also asking for gently used childrens clothes, especially for babies up to 3 years old. Large bags of individually wrapped candy can be found at PriceSmart, Wongs (in Rey's Shopping Center next to lighting store), Song across the PanAm highway from CityMall and plastic Easter eggs can be found at Todo A Dollar Store and Wongs. We have 600 purchased small colored bags with handles to fill. Please help make this another great event for the kids. Please let us know if you can help

ACCBoquete presents Boquete's first annual duck race on Friday, March 19th at TapOut. Several races down the river with a tie breaking race of the 1st place winner of each race race. Proceeds to support the children from Esperanza in the Comarca with decorated Easter eggs, candy, balloons, cookies, pencils, small toys, plastic colored eggs filled with wrapped candy, and clothes for babies up to 3 years old. We got so brought so much joy to these children at Christmas time we decided we did not need to wait a year to bring joy into their lives. Come, join the fun and help make these kids feel special. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ So much fun at the duck race.......................and our winner is: Grand prize winner of $80.00 cash of the ACCB Duck Race is Mike Hailpren. Congratluations Mike! 50/50 drawing winner of $36.00 is Anabella Gomez. She was given her blue duck to remember the event. Thanks to everyone who came out to support our efforts for the kids and have a great time at the same time. upon popular demand we will be doing the race again soon and not waiting another year. Watch for details.

BINGO is coming back on Tuesday, March 16th. We're so excited. MINSA regulations will be enforced at LaPosada, every other Tuesday. Join us for Bingo! We will be receiving used phones donations for the kids of Boquete in need of equipment for virtual classes.

I'm sure you all have heard the sad news of the passing of Franc Lugo Thursday Evening, Feb. 11th. We at ACCBoquete have lost a dear fried and valued member of ACCBoquete of many years. Franc joined ACCBoquete about 8 years ago and was a active member in all of our events. Franc has been active in so many of our special events, our star 50/50 raffle guy, Octoberfest announcer, Silent Auctions and Poker Run solicitors for gift certificates and much more. He will really be missed, not by just our association but by many people in Boquete. He has helped more people here in Boquete than most. He was an avid BINGO and Trivia player. He was very active in San Juan Baptiste Church. Boqueteans have lost a good friend. As you know, ACCBoquete held a fundraiser for Franc last Monday, February 8th, at Big Daddys. The generosity of the community was overwhelming. We collected $2815.00 and waiting for a couple more checks to clear the bank. This money was to be presented to Franc on his release from the hospital to pay bills and to help him financially. As it turns out the money will go to pay for his funeral, cremation, hospital bills and what is left will go to his Panamanian family, Isabella and her daughters. We want to thank everyone for their generosity of donations at the Fundraiser on Monday, February 8th. This is a unbelievable community. Our prayers go out to the family in this time of need. Everywhere we look we will be reminded of a friend with a smile. You will be missed my friend!!!!!!!

For donation information go to https://boqueteandbeyond.com/home/boquete/community-resources/acc-boquete/franc-lugo/. This link will take you directly to the fundraiser information and how to donate at the bottom of the page. For further updated information, it will be posted here, on ACCBoquete page and Boquete & Beyond. Thank you to everyone who has expressed your concerns for Franc and your willingness to help him. Our Boquete family has never let us down. Bless you all.

ACCBoquete will be hosting a fundraiser for FRANC LUGO. Franc was admitted to Regional Hospital last Monday with deep vein thrombosis and making every effort possible to save his leg, but they had to remove it on Wednesday. Franc has been a fixture around Boquete for 10+ years and has worked as a handyman, house sitter, pet sitter, and an all around friend to everyone. Obviously this will have a major effect on how he makes a living. He is a Viet Nam era Vet and relocated to Boquete from Sanford, Florida more than 10+ years ago. If you have been in Boquete for more than a year, you know Franc. A member of San Juan Baptiste Catholic Church and a long time member of ACCBoquete. Franc has been very active in the Boquete community, working as a handyman, taking part in some of BCP plays over the years, he's always there if you need help. Its time for the Boquete community to help him. ACCBoquete will host a fundraiser to help Franc while he recovers from learning how to adjust to his new lifestyle. He will receive assistance from the VA in the form of wheelchair, prothesis, and home accommodations but it does not cover his everyday living expenses for he and his family. FRANC LUGO FUNDRAISER MONDAY FEBRUARY 8TH 12 NOON UNTIL 4 PM BIG DADDY'S, BOQUETE ALL PROCEEDS GO TO FRANC Drop off with ACCB member on Big Daddys front porch and receive a discount meal ticket with every donation. The ticker entitles you to purchase a special dinner plate of delicious pot roast with roasted potatoes and carrots for $11.00. If you are unable to attend Monday's event, there will be other locations you can drop off your donations for Franc at MailBox Etc., drop an envelope with Franc Lugo on it and address the envelope to ACCB Box #13232. Other locations will be announced after we have received authorization. Boquete is an amazing community for helping each other. Franc has always done his share and more, he now needs us. Franc and Tommy Kline at Harts Christmas 2012 Franc in one of BCP plays Franc in another BCP play

This would have been our 10th year that we had a dinner to collect wrapped gifts for needy children of Boquete. Because of Covid 19, many things have changed our normal activities that resulted in us canceling this event. Many of our community are not comfortable going out to restaurants. With this in mind, we decided not to have the fundraiser dinner. However, this does not change the fact that there are many needy kids in and around Boquete that are looking forward to Santa bringing them gifts. Last year we collected 200+ wrapped gifts. Each gift was tagged with Boy, Girl or baby and the age. We collect the gifts and pass them onto other local organizations or ministries that are in direct contact with needy children. With your help we have always been able to provide a lot of joy to these kids. Can we count on your generosity this year? ACCB members will be located at Big Daddy's, as noted above, to accept your wrapped gifts. You can join us in the back open dining area, have lunch, a drink and drop off your gift OR drop off your gift to an ACCB member located on the no-contact front porch. Either way, you will be supporting our effort to bring some joy to Boquete's needy kids. For more information contact Linda Hart at 6716-1151 or lhart249@hotmail.com;

Mortons Bake House +507 730 - 8499 +507 6456-8392 +507 6242-9387 +507 6243-0666 http://www.mortonsbakehouse.com/ Plaza San Francisco Alto Boquete Panama Reply Forward

ACCB Tuesday Talks presents at the Boquete Community Theater: December 8th: Doors open at 10am. Presentation starts at 10:30-11:30 followed by questions and answers. Topic: The true history and meaning of the Chanukah holiday Presented by: Rabbi Jakov Poliwoda Head of the Boquete Synagogue Owner of Mort's Bakery in San Francisco Plaza Studied at the Yeshiva in New York for 3 years Speaks 6 languages Come to hear this educational message. This is going to be a fun time to learn and ask questions. There is a $2.00 charge per person to cover the cost of rent and sanitizing the Theater for your protection per MINSA requirements. Per Minsa, seating is limited to 50 seats. Come early. You are welcome to bring in a beverage and snack (preferably from Mort's table at THE Tuesday Market) or any of the vendors at the Markets. For more information or suggestions on topics or speakers, contact Gerri Eckert @ 6499-6753 or gerrieckert@gmail.com. For rental of the theater, contact Bill Hurley @ 6622-3778.

In 2019 ACCB was asked to take over the Children's Christmas Cookie party at Tap Out, because no one else wanted to do it, and keep the tradition created by Erin Ross of the Boquete Community Playhouse alive. The Children's Christmas Cookie party included a special Christmas movie "in Spanish", face painters, the Pinata's, arts and crafts tables and hot dogs and cookies to die for and Mrs. and Santa Claus to hand out little gift bags to each child. That was our first year and when it was over, every ACCB member that worked that day said it was the best event we had all year and we promised Erin Ross ACCB would not let what was so near and dear to her heart, ever not happen. There were nearly 400 children at that event. So here we are, a year later facing the COVID 19 issues but we are determined to keep our word to Erin. So trying to determine if we would be able to have the children come to the theater and do all the fun things, we were advised that most likely MINSA would not allow the children to gather in such a large group. So we are doing the next best thing. We have made arrangements for the school bus driver from House of Hope (Casa de la Esperanza) if he could deliver the Christmas gift bags to all the children, around 200+, to the same children he delivers food to every week. House of Hope is very excited for us to do this but cautioned us that MINSA may be shutting some areas down during the holidays. We are confident that won't happen and are proceeding on with our plans to make Erin's dream continue. Our plan is to make delivery to all the children in the Comarca's on Saturday, December 19th. We have also arranged for delivery to Jaramillo and Las Naranjo's the same day. We anticipate we will reach out to 300-400 kids giving them something special for Christmas. If we're lucky, we might even have Santa Claus help with the delivery. In order to accomplish this, we will need volunteers to bake or buy cookies to accommodate this many children. If you can help, please contact Edie Baxter @ 6760-9426 or email Linda Hart at 6716-1151 as soon as possible. We will be putting all the goodies including the cookies in the gift bags for the kids Thursday, Dec. 17th at the Club House in Boquete Country Club. This is a long time tradition for The Boquete Community Playhouse so please help us to keep our promise to Erin Ross and make some children very happy. The little girl pictured below was taken last year at the Tap Out location and her face tells the whole story. She has become our poster child so to speak. Thank you for your continued generosity. Boquete expats are the best! Thank you.

ACCB food donation.mp4 Additional information on where the supplies was going. Dr. Daves with ACCB food donation.mp4

It is with great honor to announce that ACCBoquete has leased the BCP (Boquete Community Players) theater and lobby area from Tap Out restaurant effective November 1, 2020. Knowing our dedication to Boquete, ACCBoquete was approached by TapOut to see if we had any interest in continuing a 12+ year tradition, the Tuesday Talks, etc. to the community of Boquete. The Boquete Community Playhouse (BCP) was created from a lot of sweat, hard work and money of a group of dedicated people. BCP (Boquete Community Pulse) did not want to commit to more than 3 or 4 plays/musicals during 2021. TapOut owners are committed to paying for this under roof area to the owner of the building. As restaurant owners, they were looking for another group to take over managing this part of the building to help them cover their monthly rent to the building owner. A short time later, ACCBoquete saw this as an opportunity to carry on a tradition. At the same time, it is a way for ACCBoquete to carry out its own mission statement. BCP has graciously allowed us to use the theater equipment and assist in operating the electronic equipment for the movies, etc. ACCBoquete's lease with TapOut allows BCP to host several plays and musicals during the year at their discretion and the remaining time ACCBoquete will host the Tuesday Talks, Sunday movies Dinner theaters and manage the theater for rentals for local groups to hold their meetings, and other activities. We can't allow an icon of Boquete to sit dormit. If anyone has ideas on uses of the theater, we are up for suggestions. WHO WE ARE? For those that are not acquainted with us, ACCBoquete, is a non-profit Association, (Res. 02-PJ-02-2018). ACCB membership is made up of 50+ Americans and Spanish people. In English our name is “Association of Community Charity of Boquete,” and in Spanish it is “Asociation Cardad de la Communidad de Boquete,” but we go by the abbreviation, ACCBoquete. ACCBoquete was started about 10 years ago and was called IPA. It was started by a group of police officers who retired here from the states. The organization was to support and assist Boquetes First Responders, Police, Fire and EMT's. Later the IPA began to expand to include aiding and assisting the Boquete community as a whole and also other local associations. After the expansion, we changed our name to ACCBoquete and formed a not-for-profit Association in Panama. WHAT WE HAVE DONE: Over the years we have hosted 9 annual Christmas dinners collecting over 1000 wrapped gifts for the needy local children in Boquete. A 100% of donations of gifts and money collected in Boquete are distributed throughout Boquete's needy families and support to other Boquete charities. We take pride in supporting other Boquete charitable groups to help them achieve their goals. This is only a fraction of the things we have done. ACCBoquete also worked with the Recycle Group in Boquete, financially and physically, to clean up the environment of Boquete and educate the children in local schools of the importance of recycling. ACCBoquete has donated money towards children's back-to-school supplies and donated personal care items to the local abused or pregnant young girls in Boquete through San Juan Baptista Catholic Church. ACCBoquete has repaired multiple vehicles for the police to get their cars back on the road to protect Boquete. We have purchased appliances for the police who are required to live in the police station while on duty for 12 days at a time. We have provided financial support for fallen officers families. Just this year we provided financial support to a policeman's family who died from Covid 19. In 2020 we provided cell phones for local children so they could join their class and not fall behind in their schoolwork since every school is now conducting classes via the internet. We also contributed to the purchased a spare battery ($300.00) for Rodny Moreno for his new fully automated wheelchair. Rodny is a young man who is a paraplegic who has a business assisting the Expat community with emergency services of all kinds. Last year ACCBoquete was asked to take over the Children's Christmas Cookie party for the Boquete Indigenous and Panamanian kids at TapOut and BCP theater. In 2019 we had over 300 kids attend. Our members enjoyed it so much that we have decided to make this a annual event. We are in the process of planning another Cookie event on December 19th providing MINSA allows it. In order to be ready we are currently planning on providing a Christmas party for the kids in some form. Anyone interested in helping with this please contact Linda at lhart249@hotmail.com. ACCBoquete has supported places like the Dog Camp, The Handicap Foundation, Hogar Triska, Esperanza, The Knitter and The Quilters, Buenos Vecinos, La Estrella School, Bricks Ministry, many local ministry groups, and much more. ACCBoquete just purchased $1000. worth of food for the families that have lost nearly everything due to ETA. ACCBoquete has hosted 3 annual Oktoberfests at the Feria, we host BINGO night at La Posada (to resume on January 6, 2021) and will have our first Sausage Fest in March 2021. Of course this all depends on MINSA. When the opportunity came along for us to have another means of raising money to support our mission, we agreed to manage it with plans to give $2000. more in the future to the community. The Community Theater is an icon that took a lot of hard work to create and pull together and it needs to remain in operation for the future of Boquete's growing community. It appears we have offended people by calling the theater the ACCB Theater. This was only for a lack of a better temporary name. The original name BCP (Boquete Community Playhouse) has been changed to BCP (Boquete Community Pulse) which made no reference to the theater at all. With the approval of the original creators, we would like to refer to the theater as “Boquete Community Playhouse” rather than just BCP to eliminate confusion. Our group, ACCB, like many other charitable groups are working without any compensation. Please help us to help the needy in Boquete with your suggestions, support and contributions. Joe Hart ACCBoquete President

I truly understand Penny's comment and rightly so. Referring to the theater as ACCB Theater was not intended to be permanent nor to offend anyone. BCP originally stood for Boquete Community Playhouse. Just recently BCP has been changed to Boquete Community Pulse. I personally felt a disconnect from the theater. Using the BCP term, to me, no longer suggested the theater. No Tuesday Talks, no Sunday movies, the theater appeared to be neglected. When TapOut owners offered ACCB to manage it, our members discussed it and decided it was too much a part of Boquete to sit idle only to have 3-4 performances a year there. It has become an icon to the Boquete Community and deserves to continue with regular activities. We have talked about referring to the Theater by its full name, Boquete Community Theater, and not BCP. Penny, I'd like to hear your input and or suggestions. We have prepared an intro to our management of the theater which will be submitted today.

Asociacion Caridad de la Comunidad de Boquete They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. It took awhile to get pictures with Rodny because of the rainy weather and other things beyond our control. So, at last we are able to report on the success of ACCBoquete's Fundraiser held August 12th at Big Daddys restaurant after the final delivery of donated money has been personally handed to the intended parties and pictures have been taken to share with you. * We met our goal to help purchase a spare battery for the new electric wheelchair for RODNY MORENO's birthday. This wheelchair will enable Rodny to be as self -sufficent as he can be. Mark Heyer posted a more detailed report Sunday on News.Boquete with pictures of Rodny in his wheelchair. ACCBoquete handed Rodny $300.00 in cash to pay for the new spare battery. We also we collected donations of Smartphones for students at ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OF VOLCANCITO . The students use the cell phones to do their daily school lessons Sun and connect them with the teacher and the other students. Our goal was 3 phones and we received 6 phones plus $100.00 cash was received from our generous community. The additional phone were distributed to other students whose parents were not able to provide for them at other schools in Boquete. The cash was used to purchase sim cards, a missing charger for 1 phone, a missing memory card, and prepaid minutes for the students. Our own, Kathya de Chong headed up this project and presented the phones to Teacher Zulay Morelas ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OF VOLCANCITO and the other students from a local school in Boquete. In addition to the donation requests for Rodny and the Volcancito Elementary School some very generous people asked if they could give donations to The Dog Camp and of course, we were happy to be able to present Magaly and Javiar at THE DOG CAMP with a cash donation of $150.00. We are always amazed at the level of generosity from the Boquete community. Its why we are here and its why we do what we do. We want to thank all those that gave to one or more of these much-needed recipients. The members of ACCBoquete

Asociacion Caridad de la Comunidad de Boquete ACCB needs your help! As our mission statement states ACCB's purpose is support other local charities in Boquete. During the Covid-19 virus “season” the requests for donations from local organizations and groups has not diminished. We have made cash donations to The Handicap Foundation, The Dog Camp and La Estrella del Valley school. In addition, some of our members have personally purchased dog food and medicine for the Dog Camp in ACCB's name. Currently we have committed to the needs of Rodny Direct and Volcancito Elementary School. RODNY MORENO: aka Rodny Direct. Rodny is the 24x7x365 hotline assistance project that provides a kind of "911" style emergency assistance call-in telephone service. Rodny is a quadriplegic from birth, and so he needs assistance to do everything. He also is very dependent on a wheelchair. Rodny's current wheelchair is worn out. He needs a replacement wheelchair. Several Boquete area expatriates have already donated sufficient funds to cover the cost of the wheelchair, (The basic wheelchair comes with one battery, but a second one is strongly desired to keep Rodny mobile at all times while the other battery is charging.). The amount needed is about $250.00 to $300.00 to cover the full cost of the backup battery and its transportation from the US to Boquete. This young man has saved many a gringos over the years and likely to save many more. 2. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OF VOLCANCITO: Zulay Morales, is the 4th grade teacher for this school. She is requesting support for 4 students in her group who do not have the technological media to receive their virtual classes. Their families do not have the resources to purchase the phones used to receive their lessons and do their homework. They need either Iphones or Smartphone phones and they DO NOT need to be new. We are asking for 4 donated used cell phones so these 4 children can continue classes and keep up with their grade level. If we do not collect the 4 used phones from the community we will be purchasing new phones for them through donations. ACCB will be setup at Big Daddy's outside porch on Wednesday, August 12th from 10:00am – 12:00 noon to accept donations for Rodny (Direct) Moreno and/or Volcancito Elementary School 4th graders. ACCB is committed to donate to the Boquete community and since we have not been able to raise money hosting our bi-weekly BINGO night, musical fundraisers, Oktoberfest and SpringFest and all our other fun events, we are asking for donations at Big Daddy's. PLEASE HELP US SO WE CAN HELP THEM! Request funds (1) (2) (1).odt

ACCBoquete was asked and gratefully responded to donating food to help the LaLa Estella del Valley school. ACCBoquete presented $200.00 to Mike Hill and Tony Ettlon for bags of food they had purchased. Mike, Tony and all the workers are doing a fabulous job in helping the school children and their families.