Gavar Special School is very fortunate to have many friends who wish to see it improve and be able to meet the needs of the special needs children of Gegharkunik Marz. In Los Angeles, California on May 5, 2007 Focus on Children Now, Inc will hold their Annual Gala Dinner and Auction in support of Gavar Special School. It will be a wonderful evening of fun, fellowship, dancing and food. Jason and Tera Sprague will attend and be able to answer all your questions about Gavar Special School’s challenges, joys and future plans.

The evening will feature a silent auction with items made by students of Gavar Special School as well as artists from Abovian and Gavar so bring your competitive spirit!!

If you are interested in attending, please download the details by clicking here. Please do not wait as I am told tickets are going fast. It will be a great night and the ultimate result will be that the special needs children of Gavar Special School will be one step closer to reasonable education and life skills! If you have questions, feel free to send an email through the contact page.

An exciting development is all the articles and pages are being written in Armenian so all will be in two languages. This is very exciting as it will allow the http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org to reach more people and expand the community of supporters.

Of course, there is the ability to add comments and questions to each article and the contact page allows you to email any questions you may have. Do remember the photo album which can be found at the bottom of the sidebar.

A small tip is that http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org should be viewed with Mozilla FireFox which is a free web browser. Internet explorer is unpleasant and viewing http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org is much more enjoyable. Do click here to download an install this awesome software if you are not yet using it.

Gavar Special School cannot act alone to improve special needs education for the 650+ special needs children of Gegharkunik. It needs the help of a community of caring people to help it reach its goal of providing modern special needs education. The Staff and Volunteers of Gavar Special School are very thankful for all the support that has been given. Tremendous help has been given but a long road remains to be traveled. There are many more people who have not heard of Gavar Special School and we, the Volunteers of Gavar Special School, are asking you to help us spread the news of the activities of Gavar Special School across the internet. Many people have blogs or websites on which they post journals. We are asking you to write a short entry about Gavar Special School and link back to http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org informing others about Gavar Special School. This will allow people who are wishing to find more information about Gavar Special School or Armenian Special Needs Education to find the information more easily as there will be a web of links giving information about the school. We thank you in advance for your help and please be sure to give http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org a trackback or ping.

Also, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions or concerns. We would love to provide you as much information as needed to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for caring and being part of Gavar Special School’s Community!

Ms. Varsik Kroyan has been accepted as the director of the Արեվշատ Հիմնադրամ (Lots of Sun Foundation) in Support of Gavar Special School. Ms. Kroyan is a graduate of Gavar State University’s Accounting Faculty where she graduated with high honors. After her time at Gavar State University, she worked at the Gegharkunik Chamber of Commerce and Industry as a project assistant. When Mr. Lavrik Arevshatyan accepted the job as director of Gavar Special School, he sought out Ms. Kroyan to work Gavar Special School because of her reputation of excellence. Currently, she serves as the office manager for Gavar Special School. The Board of Lots of Sun recognized that Ms. Kroyan is a very capable professional and believe that this leadership position will give her an opportunity to expand her skill set and make a sustainable impact for the special needs children of Gegharkunik Marz.

If you have questions regarding the Lots of Sun Foundation, you may contact Ms. Kroyan through the contact page. Ms. Kroyan is an Armenian and Russian speaker but is currently studying English. She welcomes all questions and inquires! Please join with us in welcoming Varsik to this new position filled with opportunity!

The Lots of Sun Foundation for Special Needs Children in Support of Gavar Special School has been founded by Lavrik Arevshatyan, Dr. Varazdat Karapetyan, Jason Sprague and Kayte Williams. The purpose of this foundation is twofold. The first is to provide tax advantages, in Armenia, for donations received by Gavar Special School. Armenian tax law does not view public schools as non-profit organizations thus these funds can be taxed. Although the founders of the foundation wish to pay the correct amount of tax, it is not fiscally responsible to the special needs children of Gavar Special School to pay more taxes than mandated by law.

The second purpose of the foundation is to allow for stronger financial oversight of the donated funds and to provide security for Mr. Arevshatyan, Gavar Special School’s Director. Previous to founding Lots of Sun, the donated funds came to Gavar Special School’s accounts. For small donations, this did not prove much of a problem but as the campaign to replace the school’s roof builds strength, it is expected that the bank account will reach $75,000. The founders felt strongly that the donations needed to be out of the reach of government officials because if the regional leadership wished, they could release Mr. Arevshatyan and assume control over the funds. Obviously, this could jeopardize the promise made to the greater Gavar Special School Supporter Community in which fiscal transparency and honesty will prevail.

The Lots of Sun Foundation, named out of appreciation for Mr. Arevshatyan’s work as School Director, will provide all legal oversights to the development of Gavar Special School and will be a shareholder in the school’s future. The foundation is open to all interested people who wish to join and have a voice in how Gavar Special School will be improved to meet the needs of its students. Please use the contact page to express your interest to serve on the Foundation.

The logo for the foundation was designed by Mrs. Elizabeth Gleason of Jamestown, New York. The foundation is a separate entity from Gavar Special School thus, the new logo will show a separation particularly domestically. The staff, students and volunteers of Gavar Special School would like to thank Elizabeth for the donation of her time to help forward the efforts to raise awareness of special needs in rural Armenia.

The foundation will begin to extend into lobbying the Armenian Government to provide greater support for special needs children. At the current funding, Armenian special needs children receive one-fifth the funding as children in the orphanage system while special need school provide 100% more services. As the membership of the Lots of Sun Foundation grows, the strategic plan will be decided. If you wish to have input into this plan, all interested persons are welcome!

To remain up-to-date, please be sure to register in the right hand menu! Once you register, you will receive email updates from Gavar Special School. Your email is protected and will not be used for any other purpose than notifying you of changes to the Gavar Special School website.

Please feel free to if you have questions or feedback!

Mr. Vigen Amirian, of Tehran, accompanied by friends, came to Gavar Special School on September 1st to celebrate with the children the marriage of his son. All of the students, staff and volunteers of Gavar Special School were in attendance for the celebration which featured a duduk ensemble as well as a meal of traditional Gavar Kufta.

The celebration was great fun for the children who sang and danced and even gave speeches and toasts. It was a quite a treat for the children on the first day of school to have such a wonderful surprise.

Gavar Special School’s students, staff and volunteers congratulate Vigen and Angel Amirian on the marriage of their son!