ABOUT

As of June 10, 2024, Us & Friends: Education for Everyone is a registered non-profit organization of Puerto Rico.  We are currently engaged in the 501(c)(3) status application process.  We will be updating aspects of our website to reflect all of this.

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Some of our backstory:

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Greetings,

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We're Jack and Damaris (Dama) Foster.    Welcome to our latest endeavor--or more accurately, the consolidation and formalization of many of our interests and their resultant endeavors we've pursued or stumbled upon over the years.

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Jack is originally from Montana and Damaris is originally from Aguada, Puerto Rico; we have happily resided together in Cabo Rojo, PR, for about a decade--we love Cabo Rojo and consider it our home.  We rent a little piece of land and have fixed up a half-finished, once abandoned wooden house.  We have lived entirely off-the-grid for around six years; this was a goal and has proven to be one of the best experiences of our lives.

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We have a "just for fun" band, consisting of Damaris on vocals and Jack attempting to chord along on a guitar, that we call "Us". 

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A few years ago, we, along with friends, put on a benefit concert and art exhibit for a dear friend--we had to come up with a name for the event and decided upon, "Us & Friends". 

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In 2020, earthquakes affected our portion of the island--among other things, schools were closed for a few months.  At the time, Damaris was a private art teacher and Jack was a private math tutor; we decided to offer free art and math classes on Saturdays to try to help the community.  The idea blew up and soon we were joined by many volunteers and teachers--as a collective group (100% grassroots and volunteer--no formal organization, funds, paperwork, . . ., not even matching t-shirts), we offered free classes, spanning the full spectrum of core subjects for k--12th grade students, every Saturday until schools were reopened.  Through the years, we continued to teach and tutor within a variety of contexts and balancing of intents--supporting ourselves and/while providing free or discounted services for the many who would otherwise be excluded.  All of this, too, eventually required a name, and we settled upon, "Us & Friends: Education for Everyone".

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This was always part-time and on-the-side, but recently, we have decided to see what could happen if we devoted our full attention to accessible and quality education "for everyone" along with the pursuit of some of our other interests and passions.  We have decided to focus on three overlapping concepts, namely, 

1. Education

2. Environmental Sustainability

3. Community.

Naturally, there is much overlap between the three, and we aren't restricting our activities to rigid definitions--as we evolve and as interests or needs arise, so may our foci.  ​We will attempt to (likely rather slowly) detail these three foci as they relate to our vision, mission, and long- and short-term goals, in both theory and practice.  For a number of reasons, we are initially prioritizing the educational component.  

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We are currently going through the process of formalizing this as a "nonprofit" organization (pretty formal and ambitious for us!), in hopes that this will eventually allow opportunity for greater accessibility "for everyone".  Until then, we will continue to balance the practical necessity for our efforts to financially support ourselves along with our ideological passion for inclusion "for everyone" by offering scholarships to those that can't afford educational services, along with offering as many free or reduced-priced events and services as possible; we are also fond of trading goods and services.

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For now, if interested in any aspect, please check out our website and/or social media pages (Damaris's domain and expertise) for some of our current projects, ideas, and goals; and if anything seems relevant and desirable to you, we look forward to participating with you in some capacity.  Also, please feel free to contact us with questions, concerns, clarifications, ideas, or just to say, "Hi".

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Thanks for taking the time to check out Us & Friends: For Everyone!

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Jack & Dama