Each year the toddlers graduating from the Father Ray Day Care Center arrive together to receive their graduating certificates. This year, due to the current Covid-19 corona virus, the students arrived at twenty minute intervals, meaning the ceremony from start to finish took more than eight hours.
Not only did the children receive their graduating certificates, but they also received a tin of money. Each morning on arriving at the Center, the children must pay a fee of twenty baht. For that money they receive three sets of uniforms, breakfast, lunch, snacks, a monthly visit by a nurse and a basic education, which includes English, music and cooking.
Once they graduate and are due to attend a government school, the parents have to buy new uniforms, which for a poor family can be expensive. So the Center returns a percentage of the fees they have paid, and during these worrying times the cash was gratefully received.
The family of one little girl pay 100 baht each day. They used it as a savings plan and they picked up a total of 21,415 baht, much needed now that the parents are out of work.
