Island to Island gets its feet on the ground
12 May 2001
By Lauren Theodore - The Islands' Sounder

Bernadette Ebanks and Sarah-Jane Taylor's hard work is beginning to pay off for 14 children living on Roatan, an island located 30 miles off of Honduras. Their nonprofit organization, Island to Island, still needs the support of islanders who want to provide basic health services and education to underprivileged children.

"We need funding to continue funding them," Ebanks said.

Ebanks was introduced to the area in 1995 as a senior on a Friday Harbor High School trip chaperoned by teacher Mary Ann Church. She felt an instant connection to the people and the culture and returned to Honduras after the summer of her graduation to teach English at a government school for two years.

She learned the importance of children learning English in a growing tourism market that displaced non-English speakers from the job market.

When Taylor was looking for a place to spend the winter three years ago, she went to Honduras and stayed at a resort owned by the parents of Ebanks' husband Teddy.
Taylor became deeply attached to the area as well and it wasn't long before the two joined forces to sponsor children to go to school. For $900 a year, children in Roatan receive school tuition, transportation, food, books and uniforms.

If Ebanks and Taylor locate funding sources to operate a facility, there is a good chance that Island to Island will receive a free facility from a U.S. charitable organization. It will house a school, a cafeteria and heath and resource center for families. Island to Island is in the process of securing a piece of land for the building.

Once the facility is built, the organization will need operational funding in order to run it.

Ebanks hopes that a structure filled with people who share real stories with one another as well as visitors, will attract sponsors who might be reluctant to help fund an idea alone. The idea is materializing into something tangible and it's happening fast. In the organization's first year, seven children were sponsored. This year it doubled to 14 and all of them are honor students.

"For a lot of these kids it has turned their lives around, "Ebanks said, adding that the purpose of the program is to advance the students they have enrolled all the way through high school graduation.

Yarida Mann, for example, is a young woman who was sponsored by the non-profit. She received her education from a computer school and is now working in her own office at a light company-a respectable job in an area where jobs can be hard to come by.

Yarida is just one of Island to Island's success stories.

Another Island to Island-sponsored student named Jonathan, goes to school during the day and stays up past midnight every night selling pastellitos to supplement his families' income. "Once he graduates, it will better their lives," Ebanks said.

Ebanks has been working in Friday Harbor this winter and hopes to return to Roatan as soon as she can.

Taylor has been on-site for the last five months and will return to Friday Harbor in the upcoming weeks, Ebanks said. One of the two women will be returning to Roatan sometime this summer.

If you would like to sponsor a child or if you would like more information, please contact Bernadette Ebanks at 360-378-5784 or email jbird@interisland.net

This article was originally published in The Islands' Sounder on April 11, 2001 and is copyrighted by them. We thank The Islands' Sounder for allowing us to reprint this story.